PROBABILITY Maximum and Minimum Temperatures

PROBABILITY

Maximum and Minimum Temperatures

Search the Internet for U.S. climate data.

Choose the city in which you live. 

Click on the tab that reads “Daily.” 

1. Prepare a spreadsheet with three columns:  Date, High Temperature, and Low Temperature.  List the past 60 days for which data is available.

1. Prepare a histogram for the data on high temperatures and comment on the shape of the distribution as observed from these graphs.

1. Calculate  and S. 

1. What percentage of the high temperatures are within the interval   – S to  + S?

1. What percentage of the high temperatures are within the interval   – 2S to  + 2S?

1. How do these percentages compare to the corresponding percentages for a normal distribution (68.26% and 95.44%, respectively)?

1. Repeat Parts 2 to 6 for the minimum temperatures on your spreadsheet. 

1. Would you conclude that the two distributions are normally distributed?  Why or why not?