Weather scarf 2018
Monitoring and logging are part of aspectra's core business. But many phenomena outside of our IT architectures can also be presented with surprising clarity using statistical presentation methods.
Weather monitoring by knitting
Well, that's the way it goes: Throughout the year, a row is knitted every day in the colour that corresponds best to the weather of the day. I always take the weather for the place where I happen to be. If I'm on holiday in another country, then it is naturally from there. I use the following color key for the representation of the weather:
- orange = over 30° (from 2017 on, the colour is slightly less bright than 2014-2016)
- yellow = sunny
- light grey = slightly cloudy
- dark grey = very cloudy
- blue = rain
- green = month-end
Since December isn't over yet, the scarf is not quite finished. If I would knit the missing days in advance now, I'd end up with data forgery! I also knit only the days and not the nights. If it is snowing or raining at night, this is not noted in the scarf. So this year there was (so far) almost no white.
What was the weather like in 2018?
The blanket is getting bigger and bigger, and with the accumulated data also more informative. By comparing the colours with the previous years, we can see that there was plenty of yellow in 2018, although yellow was not too scarce in recent years either. For a while in the summer there was a lot of orange, meaning it was swelteringly hot. Had I stayed in Switzerland during the summer holidays instead of by the North Sea, there would have been even more orange (and more sweating). Thre most striking thing is, though, how little rain there was this year. 2018 was one of the driest years ever, and - according to Meteo Switzerland - the fourth warmest spring and the third warmest summer since the beginning of measurements in 1864.
I cannot yet say what the weather will look like in 2019. But one thing is for sure: knitting will continue!