Welcome to our Syracuse Weather Dashboard.
This offers a comprehensive, data-driven look at the key weather variables, such as temperature, snowfall, and storm frequency, that define the academic experience at Syracuse.
This dashboard is to provide current and prospective students, faculty, and local residents with a clear, historical understanding of Syracuse’s renowned winter climate. By analyzing decades of data from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and the National Weather Service, we aim to allow users to move beyond anecdotes and utilize verifiable data to prepare for the academic year and the inevitable snowfall.
Question: How do the average temperatures in Syracuse change across the year, and which months are the coldest for students?
Average temperatures in Syracuse reach their lowest point in January, with an average temperature of 24.45°F, and remain cold throughout December (32.03°F) and February (27.31°F). Temperatures warm steadily through spring and peak in July, when the average temperature reaches 72.85°F. This confirms that the coldest period for students is December through February, while the warmest conditions occur in midsummer before temperatures drop again heading into the fall semester.
A month-by-month breakdown of Syracuse’s temperature patterns, highlighting typical average, high, and low conditions for students.
| Month | Avg Temp (°F) | Max Temp (°F) | Min Temp (°F) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 24.4 | 31.5 | 15.7 |
| Feb | 27.3 | 33.5 | 16.8 |
| Mar | 34.8 | 42.7 | 25.1 |
| Apr | 46.8 | 56.6 | 36.1 |
| May | 59.3 | 68.9 | 46.7 |
| Jun | 67.9 | 77.7 | 56.0 |
| Jul | 72.9 | 82.3 | 61.1 |
| Aug | 71.1 | 80.4 | 59.5 |
| Sep | 64.4 | 72.9 | 52.0 |
| Oct | 52.8 | 61.2 | 41.8 |
| Nov | 41.7 | 48.4 | 32.9 |
| Dec | 32.0 | 36.4 | 22.2 |
Question: What is the average monthly snowfall amount, and during which month are Syracuse students likely to experience the most snow?
Average snowfall in Syracuse peaks in January, when the city receives about 34 inches of snow on average. Snow totals remain high in December and February, creating a long winter season for students. From late spring through early fall, snowfall is close to zero, so most snow days are concentrated in the core winter months.
A month-by-month snapshot of Syracuse’s snowfall, highlighting which parts of the school year are snowiest and which months have little or no snow.
| Month | Snowfall (in.) |
|---|---|
| Jan | 34.0 |
| Dec | 30.6 |
| Feb | 30.3 |
| Mar | 19.8 |
| Nov | 9.8 |
| Apr | 3.0 |
| Oct | 0.2 |
| May | 0.1 |
| Jun | 0.0 |
| Jul | 0.0 |
| Aug | 0.0 |
| Sep | 0.0 |
Question: How often does Syracuse experience blizzards, and what time of year are they most frequent?
Data management and plot can go here
Text can go here
Text and/or links can go here
Text can go here
Text and/or links can go here
Question: How many days per semester can Syracuse students typically expect snow, and which semester experiences more snow depth?
Correlations with Wind Speed
Question: Over the last 10 years has there been a decrease or increase in average wind speed in Syracuse?
Text can go here
Text and/or links can go here
This dashboard was created using Quarto in RStudio, and the R Language and Environment.
The dataset used to create this dashboard was downloaded fromNational Centers for Environmental Information. (2025, December 2). Past Weather – Syracuse, NY. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/past-weather/Syracuse,%20NY
Palecki, M., Durre, I., Applequist, S., Arguez, A., & Lawrimore, J. (2021). National Centers for Environmental Information. U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020: Monthly Climate Normals. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/?utm_source=chatgpt.com#dataset=normals-monthly&timeframe=30&location=NY&station=USW00014771
National Centers for Environmental Information. Storm Events Database: Winter Storm events in Onondaga County, NY (1950–2024). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/listevents.jsp?eventType=%28Z%29+Winter+Storm&beginDate_mm=01&beginDate_dd=01&beginDate_yyyy=1950&endDate_mm=11&endDate_dd=12&endDate_yyyy=2024&county=ONONDAGA%3A67&hailfilter=0.00&tornfilter=0&windfilter=000&sort=DT&submitbutton=Search&statefips=36%2CNEW+YORK
National Weather Service. Past weather observations – KSYR (Syracuse Hancock International Airport). https://forecast.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KSYR.html
Allaire J, Dervieux C (2024). quarto: R Interface to ‘Quarto’ Markdown Publishing System. R package version 1.4.4, https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=quarto.
Arnold J (2024). ggthemes: Extra Themes, Scales and Geoms for ‘ggplot2’. R package version 5.1.0, https://github.com/jrnold/ggthemes, https://jrnold.github.io/ggthemes/.
Bache S, Wickham H (2025). magrittr: A Forward-Pipe Operator for R. doi:10.32614/CRAN.package.magrittr https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.magrittr, R package version 2.0.4, https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=magrittr.
Dancho M, Vaughan D (2025). tidyquant: Tidy Quantitative Financial Analysis. doi:10.32614/CRAN.package.tidyquant https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.tidyquant, R package version 1.0.11, https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=tidyquant.
Kunst J (2022). highcharter: A Wrapper for the ‘Highcharts’ Library. R package version 0.9.4, https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=highcharter.
Neuwirth E (2022). RColorBrewer: ColorBrewer Palettes. R package version 1.1-3, https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=RColorBrewer.
Posit team (2025). RStudio: Integrated Development Environment for R. Posit Software, PBC, Boston, MA. URL http://www.posit.co/.
R Core Team (2025). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.https://www.R-project.org/.
Rinker, T. W. & Kurkiewicz, D. (2017). pacman: Package Management for R. version 0.5.0. Buffalo, New York. http://github.com/trinker/pacman
Wickham H, Averick M, Bryan J, Chang W, McGowan LD, François R, Grolemund G, Hayes A, Henry L, Hester J, Kuhn M, Pedersen TL, Miller E, Bache SM, Müller K, Ooms J, Robinson D, Seidel DP, Spinu V, Takahashi K, Vaughan D, Wilke C, Woo K, Yutani H (2019). “Welcome to the tidyverse.” Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686. doi:10.21105/joss.01686 https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686.
Xie Y (2025). knitr: A General-Purpose Package for Dynamic Report Generation in R. R package version 1.50, https://yihui.org/knitr/.
Yihui Xie (2015) Dynamic Documents with R and knitr. 2nd edition. Chapman and Hall/CRC. ISBN 978-1498716963
Yihui Xie (2014) knitr: A Comprehensive Tool for Reproducible Research in R. In Victoria Stodden, Friedrich Leisch and Roger D. Peng, editors, Implementing Reproducible Computational Research. Chapman and Hall/CRC. ISBN 978-1466561595
Zhu H (2024). kableExtra: Construct Complex Table with ‘kable’ and Pipe Syntax. R package version 1.4.0, https://github.com/haozhu233/kableExtra, http://haozhu233.github.io/kableExtra/.