Conclusions
The
Northern Mountains had the most days with ice, on average. This differed from
our hypothesis, as we expected the Piedmont region to receive the most days
with ice. However it's important to note that the data used in this study was only
available for the last few years. A longer period of record is needed to obtain
a more worthwhile climatology. We also only focused on the number of days with
ice for each season. Using the number of hours where ice was observed may have
given us a better idea of the overall impact.
Future
Work
Our
project only involved retrieving data for a 5-year period. To develop a more
complete climatology, we will need to find more long term ice observations. In
addition, calculating the number of hours in each season where ice was observed
should give us a better idea of how long ice impacted a certain station. We
also need to verify that the information is accurate by comparing one station's
data to the data from surrounding stations.