The featured chart presents some statistical metrics for the distribution of reported high and low temperatures for all long term climate sites tracked in Iowa by the IEM on 2 November. There is no spatial nor temporal weighting done, it is just a simple accounting of what's available for the date. The stepped lines are histograms for each degree value and the dashed lines represent a "normal distribution" based on the calculated mean and standard deviation. The chart illustrates some neat concepts for the weather we get this time of year. The most interesting to me is the amount of population over the theoretical distribution at about 32 degrees for low temperature. There is a physical reasoning for this! Soil temperatures are typically above freezing and along with some meager vegetation that still may have some liquid water content present. So it takes a lot of cooling to power through this thermal resistance that happens near freezing with the release of heat that happens when water freezes. So this resistance becomes a biased settling place for low temperatures to prefer. The vast majority of high temperatures are above this level and along with aforementioned above freezing soil temperatures and little snowfall, the distribution is much smoother.

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