2022
The weather of your life
Country/area: Finland
Organisation: Helsingin Sanomat
Organisation size: Big
Publication date: 03/10/2021
Credit: Oona Laine, Hanna Kainulainen, Timo Myllymäki, Miro Nurmela, Susanne Salmi, Juho Salminen
Biography:
Oona Laine, text
Hanna Kainulainen, illustrations
Timo Myllymäki, code
Miro Nurmela, data analysis
Susanne Salmi, text editing and production
Juho Salminen, production
Project description:
This is a personally changing story that takes the reader on a journey through the weather she encountered during her lifetime. When was the coldest day? Or the hottest? Or warmest Christmas? Earliest first snow?
And what does this all say about our changing climate?
All the reader has to do is choose her birth year and region and read on.
Impact reached:
The story has two time levels: past and future. The past is told by the visual data elements from the area the reader has chosen. The future is told by text that is different for each region. The future is based on climate model forecasts from The Finnish Climate Change Panel.
These two levels provide a story that illustrates how weather extremes are not only a random or local thing but a part of a global warming trend.
Techniques/technologies used:
Article uses prefetch weather data from 1959 to 2020 of 18 Finnish weather stations. By readers selection (age and region) personalized weather information is parsed and shown with JS.
Each regions average temperatures between 1970-2020 is drawn by D3.
What was the hardest part of this project?
Hardest part was to collect the data. What we have running in the background is daily measurement data from 18 weather stations around Finland, one in almost every region. All this from 1959 to present day.
The data comes from Finnish Meteorological Institute.
What can others learn from this project?
Using personalized data journalism it is possible to draw line from personal memories and local weather to a global mega trend that is climate change.
