Heating and cooling degree days in Oklahoma City

Prior to the Joint Urban 2003 field experiment, fifteen Portable Weather Information and Display Systems (PWIDS) were installed in and around the central business district (CBD) of Oklahoma City. PWIDS sites collected 10-second data over the course of eleven months. The PWIDS observations, as well as measurements collected by the Oklahoma Mesonet, were analyzed to isolate seasonal heating and cooling degree days (HDD and CDD, respectively) for urban and rural environments.

Two seasons were examined based on the dominance of either HDD or CDD. Thus, July through August were chosen for the warm season in order to calculate CDD for these months, while December through February encompassed the cool season for HDD. Degree days were computed using the average daily temperature (at nine meters) measured by PWIDS and Mesonet sites. The daily temperatures were then compared to a base of 18.3 degrees Celsius (65 degrees Fahrenheit). During the warm season, the urban area was one CDD warmer, per day, than rural areas. As for the cool season, the urban area was more than one HDD warmer, per day, than rural areas. These differences between urban and rural CDD/HDD have consequential impacts, specifically in the energy industry.