Large Data Set

Question 1

What are the 5 UK locations- listed north to south

Answer 1

Leuchars: town in Scotland
Leeming: village in North Yorkshire
Heathrow: hamlet in Greater London
Hurn: village in Dorset (South West England)
Camborne: town in Cornwall (South West England)

Question 2

What are the 3 international locations

Answer 2

Beijing: capital city of China
Perth: capital city of Western Australia (state of Australia)
Jacksonville: city in Florida (state of USA)

Question 3

What are the 2 time periods

Answer 3

May to October 1987
May to October 2015

Question 4

What are the variables in the large data set ?

Answer 4

Daily mean (air) temperature
Measured in degrees Celsius (°C) given to 1dp
Average of hourly temperature readings between 0900 - 0900 GMT
Daily total rainfall
Measured in millimetres (mm) given to 1dp
Measured for the 24 hours starting at 0900 GMT
A trace of rain ‘tr’ is an amount less than 0.05mm
Daily total sunshine
Measured in hours (hr) given to 1dp
Daily maximum relative humidity
Given as a percentage given to the nearest integer
A reading above 95% is associated with mist and fog
Daily mean windspeed and direction
Mean measured in knots (1 kn = 1.15 mph) given to nearest integer and is described using the Beaufort conversion (calm, light, etc)
Direction measured in degrees rounded to the nearest 10 and is given as a cardinal direction (north, south, etc)
Averaged for 24 hours starting at 0000 GMT
Daily maximum gust and direction
Measured using the same units as windspeed
The maximum instantaneous speed over the 24 hours
Cloud cover
Measured in Oktas (eighths of the sky covered by cloud)
Daily mean visibility
Measured in decametres (1 Dm = 10 m) horizontally
Daily mean pressure
Measured in hectopascals (1 hPa = 100 Pa = 1 millibar)

Question 5

Is the data complete?

Answer 5

There are missing or unknown pieces of data
These are listed as ‘n/a’ or ‘-‘
The total daily total sunshine, mean windspeed and maximum gust is unknown for the first half of May 1987 for the UK cities
The data should be cleaned before samples are taken
The three international cities only contain data for:
Daily mean temperature, daily total rainfall, daily mean pressure and daily mean windspeed

Question 6

What are some important features ?

Answer 6

Consider which locations are closer to the equator
Consider which locations are near a coast
Jacksonville, Perth, Camborne, Hurn, Leuchars are near the coast
Consider which locations are in each hemisphere
Perth is in the southern hemisphere so have winter when UK has summer
Consider which variables are discrete and which are continuous
Cloud cover is discrete
You can use 0 or 0.025 for rainfall that is listed as ‘tr’
The great storm of 1987 happened 15-16 October in UK
The wind speeds were high at this time
The south and south-east of England was affected
This will skew some variables (wind/gust/rainfall)
This won’t have much impact some variables (sunshine/cloud cover)
October in the UK is normally cloudy and has less sunshine
Don’t worry about remembering the exact dates of this but it is something to be aware of
Consider the number of days in each month
30 days in June and September
31 days in May, July, August and October
In total the LDS covers 184 days