1

Urban Heat Island and Wind Interaction in the Twin Cities During a Summer and Winter
Season
KATIE E. VOITIK
Meteorology Program, Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, Iowa State University
Mentors: Brian Hornbuckle and Tracy Twine

Abstract
This project investigates how wind speed influences the urban heat island in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul
area, Minnesota, USA. The city was partitioned into four equal quadrants, and the time period looked at was June
August 2013, and December 2012 February 2013. The quadrant that received air flow due to wind from outside
the urban area, called the windward quadrant, should be cooler than the average temperature of the entire urban area,
and stronger winds should lead to a stronger temperature difference. In addition, the degree of influence should be
higher in the winter than in the summer due to an expected greater difference in temperature between urban and
rural areas from snow cover. The dominant wind direction for the Twin Cities was determined and separated into
three different speed categories. For each hour in which the wind was from the dominant wind direction, the overall
urban mean temperature was compared to the windward quadrant mean temperature. On the whole, the quadrant
temperatures were nearly always cooler than the entire city, and for most of the months the degree of influence
increased with the wind speed. While it was observed that winter had a greater effect than the summer, there was no
pattern as the wind speeds increased.

1. Introduction
Urban heat islands occur over a populated
area with a dense network of buildings and humanmade landmarks. The composition of these buildings
act like the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,
absorbing the incoming radiation from the sun and
other energy and emitting longwave radiation to
warm the air in the urban area. Since the amount of
radiation emitted is directly affected by temperature,
the urban area warms up to a few degrees more than
the surrounding rural area. The winter can sometimes
have more of a temperature difference compared to
rural areas based on the snow cover. Since snow is
generally cleared off of buildings and streets, the
albedo of the city is a lot lower than the surrounding
rural area, which is still covered with snow and
reflects more radiation than it absorbs and emits. The
temperature of the rural area would stay cooler as a
result.
1.1 Goals of the research
The purpose of this research project is to
investigate the wind interactions with the urban heat
island in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota area.
It is hypothesized that as winds blow toward the
windward quadrant, the temperature of that specific
quadrant would be cooler than the entire urban area.
In addition, stronger winds would lead to a greater

temperature difference between the urban and rural

areas. Finally, there would be more of a degree of
difference in the winter seasons, defined as
December through February, than in the summer,
defined as June through August. This experiment was
conducted in the summer and winter of 2013 using
temperature data from the University of Minnesota
and wind data from the Iowa Environmental
Mesonet.
1.2 Twin Cities climate data
Average
High (C)

Average
Low (C)

December
January
February
June
July

-2.7
-4.6
-1.7
26
28.6

-10.9
-13.6
-10.7
14.9
17.8

Average
Precipitation
(mm)
29
23
20
108
103

August

26.9

16.6

109

Table 1. A summary of the climate statistics from

1981 to 2010 for the Twin Cities, with average highs,
lows, and precipitation listed for the summer and
winter months.

On average, the Twin Cities in the winter

have cold temperatures and snow and high
temperatures and rain in the summer, as summarized
in Table 1. Overall the summer has more
precipitation measured compared to the winter
months. In the winter for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul
area, the hours of sunlight and incoming radiation are
extremely limited due to the winter season and the
latitude of Minnesota. Winds are typical out of the
north/northwest, bringing in colder air from Canada.
In the summer, precipitation most often falls in
August, where the average is around 109 mm of
rainfall throughout the summer season. Winds are
usually out of the south/southeast (US Climate Data).

Figure 2. View of
(mindsmattermn.org).

downtown

Minneapolis

1.2 Twin Cities building density

As seen in Figure 1 below, the urban
composition of Minneapolis is mostly commercial
(the red shaded areas), with industrial areas in the
northwest sector (pink shade), and entertainment
venues and housing being the third most populous
land uses and are scattered throughout. These
buildings are spaced quite close together and looking
at this map it is easy to see why an urban heat island
phenomenon exists. Figure 2 is a picture of the
downtown Minneapolis at night, showing the dense
area of buildings.

2. Literature Review
According to Schwarz et al. (2012), the
urban heat island can be measured by both land
surface temperatures and ambient air temperatures to
the top of a typical building or tree height, called the
canopy layer. Factors that influence the urban heat
island include meteorological (wind, season, weather)
and the city itself. Radhi and Sharples (2013)
describe how location, geometry, building materials,
and heat emissions all directly correlate with the
strength of the urban heat island. Even vegetation and
bodies of water can be found to have an effect.
Santamouris (2012) describes how the higher
temperatures in the city are due to release of
anthropogenic heat, absorption of radiation, lack of
cooling areas and green land cover, the reduced air
circulation, and impacted ability to emit infrared
radiation back into space.
2.1 Influence on weather systems
Shepherd (2006) discusses how urban areas
can actually change or create precipitation, depending
on certain conditions. He found that gravity waves
often station near the urban heat island. As a result,
convection can occur downstream of the urban area
as well. These can lead to forcing and precipitation
for the urban area. However, Jauregui and Romales
(1996) found the urban heat island can actually
prevent convection from strengthening or even
occurring due to the formation of a low-level
centripetal acceleration in the evening.

Figure 1. Building density of Minneapolis (from City

of Minneapolis).

Changnon (1979) used St. Louis as an area

for urban heat island study. In his research, he found
that convection occurs more in the downwind
quadrant of the city. While this current study looks
more at the temperature changes of specific sections

of the urban area, the results will help strengthen the

findings of Changnons study.
2.2. Other urban heat island experiment locations
This research is unique in that it is looking
at how specific sections of the city are influenced by
winds. Other studies, such as ones listed below, look
at solely the urban heat island interaction.
Taleb and Abu-Hijleh (2013) concluded that
urban heat islands are influenced directly by the
urban configuration, or how the city is planned with
building placements. Winds are also directly affected
by the layout of the city as well. With urban heat
islands, however, the urban placement has a stronger
impact on its magnitude than the winds do in general.
They used Dubai, UAE as a study area to conclude
these findings in their research.
Bornstein and Lin (2000) set up a dense
research network in Atlanta called Project
ATLANTA to study the thunderstorm and urban heat
island interactions over the summer of 1996. Heat
islands were observed during the day and night. It
was found that maximum temperatures were located
near areas of convergence and precipitation totals for
each storm that was studied. In addition, this study
concluded that vertical motions were more influenced
by urban heat islands during the day than at night.
Therefore, these storms were initiated by a
convergence zone that was induced by the urban heat
island itself around the city.
Menberg et al. (2013) analyzed how the
urban heat island can affect a subsurface area in
Germany. Urban areas can trap heat underground
much like they do on the surface. This study
determined the degree to which subsurface urban heat
islands compare to surface ones and found that the
magnitude of the subsurface urban heat island is
much greater than that of the surface one. The exact
cause of this can be due to multiple factors, such as
sewage, cables, and underground water sources.
Another study done by Schwarz et al. (2012) in
Leipzig, Germany discussed the interactions between
the land surface temperatures and land cover types,
such as grass cover, agriculture, and urban surfaces.
They found that for both the temperatures at the
surface and the air within the canopy layer, the type
of land cover has an impact. However, weather was
not explicitly taken into account, which could have a
large impact on the daily temperatures used in the
study.

3. Experimental Methods
3.1 Data sources
Air temperature data for the MinneapolisSaint Paul, MN, USA was obtained from Dr. Tracy
Twine at the University of Minnesota. The dataset
contains air temperature measurements taken every
15 minutes from June 2011 to the present.
Temperature was measured at nearly 170 sites and
interpolated (co-kriged with impervious surface
satellite data, Smoliak et al. in review) to a grid
spanning from 44.55N to 45.35N, and from
93.80W to 92.75W.
The wind data was obtained through the
Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM). Archived data
from ASOS stations for Minnesota were downloaded
from the site, which contained both wind direction in
meteorological degrees and speeds in knots. Twelve
different stations across the Twin Cities and their
surrounding rural areas were obtained for each month
researched in order to get a good sampling area. Two
were taken from the Wisconsin ASOS stations that
were close to the rural area near the Twin Cities.
3.2 Seasons studied
For this study, a summer and winter season
were examined. The summer season was defined as
June through August 2013, and the winter season was
December 2012 through February 2013. The years
available to look at from the temperature data
network had many extremes throughout the summer
occurring, with droughts and floods and heat waves.
2013 was picked due to it being the most average of
all of the options. Similarly, the winter of 2012/2013
was also average in terms of snowfall and
temperature (climate.gov). Using average seasons
would allow the results to be as representative as
possible, and allow little room for error from a
meteorological extreme event.
3.3 Wind analysis
For each ASOS station, wind direction and
speed frequency graphs were created in order to
determine the dominant wind direction for each
month. In meteorological degrees, 0 is north, 90 is
east, 180 is south, and 270 is west. Figures 3 and 4
illustrate a typical August graph for each below.
Figure 5 shows a wind rose graph that was created
for each station as well, in order to cross-compare the
frequency graphs. Any winds that were zero knots
were taken out along with their corresponding

directions in order to isolate the days with winds of

measurable magnitude. Using these graphs, the wind
speed variations and the dominant winds were
identified for each month. For the summer, southeast
winds were the most common and northwest winds
for the winter.

Figure 5. Wind rose for August 2013, with hourly

data recorded in knots for station 21D.
3.4 City quadrants and study area

Figure 3. Wind direction frequency in knots for

August 2013. The data is taken hourly for station
21D.

The boundaries of the study area are shown

in Figure 7. However, the question is what counts as
rural vs. urban? In order to answer this, a population
density map of the Twin Cities (Figure 6) was used to
qualitatively determine the urban boundaries along
with the building density map shown earlier in Figure
1. A box was drawn around this defined urban area,
and the exact latitude and longitude coordinates were
determined (using gps-coordinates.net). This square
was divided into four equal areas: northwest,
northeast, southeast, and southwest as seen in Figure
7. Finally, the exact latitude and longitude
coordinates for the quadrants where the dominant
wind blows toward were determined. By doing this,
the winds can be limited by quadrant later on.
3.5 Urban heat island analysis

Figure 4. Wind speed frequency for August 2013 at

station 21D. The data is taken every hour with values
only recorded for 3 knots and above.

The first part of the project involved proving

the existence of an urban heat island for each month.
Using the city and rural quadrants qualitatively
observed in Figure 7, the temperature data was
broken into these two sections and plotted against
each other to see if an urban heat island can be
identified. In addition, frequency plots of the mean
rural temperatures subtracted from the mean urban
temperatures were created to see how many positive
(hotter) values of the urban data were obtained. A
regression line was fit onto the plots of the urban and
rural data to find the R2 value and see how correlated
the two are.

3.6 Quadrant comparisons

After an urban heat island was proved for
the month, the temperature data was narrowed down
into the dominant wind speed quadrant. Using the
ASOS data, specific daily hours in which the
dominant wind occurred were specified. These winds
were broken up into speed categories. The first wind
category was calm, which was defined as 1 to 6
knots. Moderate was defined as 7 to 14 knots, and
strong was anything above 14 knots. These categories
were figured out due how the frequency of the speeds
was distributed throughout the month. In order to use
an hour throughout the rest of the study, the winds
must fall within one of the categories, and it must be
observed more than once per hour. If this occurs, the
hour is counted toward the wind speed category. This
was done using three ASOS stations near to the
dominant quadrant.
Figure 6. A population density map of the Twin
Cities from the 2000 census (Geographic Information
Services, LCC-GIS Office).

After these hours were determined for each

wind speed, a mean temperature for the quadrant and
the city as a whole was calculated. Each category for
each month was done in this way, and the difference
between the whole urban area and the specific
quadrant was calculated. Overall averages for each
wind category for each month were calculated as well
as the overall calm, moderate, and strong wind
averages for further comparison and analysis.

4. Results
4.1 Urban heat islands
Each month was proven to have an urban
heat island. This indicates higher mean temperatures
in the urban area compared to the rural. Figure 8
shows temperature differences for each hour in July.
There are periods in which the rural areas were much
warmer than the city. The negative values do not
seem to occur randomly, but are grouped by certain
days. This pattern was observed in all months.
Figure 7. The boundaries of the temperature
network (black square), the boundaries of the urban
area (red square) and the quadrant boundaries (black
lines) of the Twin Cities (Google Maps).

Figure 9 is a histogram of the urban and

rural differences in July. As seen on the graph, the
majority of differences were positive, with a peak
near 0.3 C. Similar graphical results were found for
each month. Finally, to further analyze these urban
heat islands, a line of regression was plotted with the
urban and rural data and the R2 values were found
along with the y intercepts and slopes. These are
summarized in Table 2.

Figure 8. Urban rural temperatures in C for July 2013. Positive values indicate warmer urban temperatures.

4.2 Wind speed results

After the urban heat island was identified,
the specific urban quadrants were compared to the
whole urban area by wind speed category. Table 3
shows the difference of the mean temperatures in C,
whole urban area minus the quadrant. The winter and
summer overall comparisons can be seen in Table 4,
where all of the summer and winter wind speed
categories were averaged, and a final difference was
taken between them.

Figure 9. Histogram of the urban and rural

temperature differences for July 2013 in C.

R2
June
July
August
December
January
February

0.997
0.997
0.998
0.998
0.998
0.996

Y
intercept
0.1642
-0.1116
-0.4782
-0.0408
-0.1436
-0.0668

Slope
0.9882
0.9965
1.0087
1.0147
0.9922
1.0041

Table 2. R2, Y intercept, and slope values for the

magnitude of the urban heat island for each month.
Temperatures were averaged in C.

Calm
-0.028
June
-0.1246
July
0.0283
August
December 0.1908
0.129
January
February 0.1793

Moderate
-0.0467
0.1101
0.1766
0.2935
0.1675
0.1364

Strong
-0.2385
0.3821
0.2023
0.1822
0.2478
0.1990

Table 3. Whole urban area quadrant averaged

temperatures in C for each wind category.

Calm
-0.0414
Summer
0.1664
Winter
-0.2078
S/W
Difference

Moderate
0.08
0.199
-0.199

Strong
0.1153
0.1449
-0.0296

Table 4. Summer and winter overall averages for

the whole urban area quadrant averaged
temperatures in C for each wind category.

5. Analysis and Interpretation

Almost every month had a measurable urban
heat island. While only July was shown above in
Figures 8 and 9, the summer and winter months had
very similar graphs, with the frequency plots showing
a majority of positive values, and any negative areas
were grouped together by day. The R2 values all were
quite similar to each other. Their values, always close
to one, indicate that the urban heat island does not
have a great magnitude where the urban and rural
areas are completely uncorrelated from each other.
All of the Y intercepts are clustered around zero,
which also proves the linear relationship. In addition,
the slope values are very close to one for all months,
but not exactly one. The fact that the relationship is
not a straight line with a slope and R2 value of one
and a Y intercept value of zero definitely proves a
slight urban heat island trend for almost every month.
For all months, the hypothesis holds true in
some way. July, August, and January had both
predictions be true: the dominant wind sector was
cooler than the entire urban area, and this difference
increased as the winds grew stronger. December and
February both had cooler temperatures in the
northwest quadrant, but the magnitudes as the winds
increased did not seem to have any pattern. June did
have a good pattern for the wind magnitude
differences, but the southeast quadrant was warmer
than the whole urban area for all wind categories. For
these three months, only one part of the hypothesis
held true.
Additionally, the opposite quadrant for the
winter was looked at. In addition to the northwest
(dominant winter wind direction) quadrant, the
southeast was also observed. Theoretically, the
temperatures should be warmer as the winds blow the
urban heat island temperatures toward this quadrant.
By doing so, it was interesting to see in Table 5 that
the opposite of the hypothesis held true.

Calm
December -0.2406
-0.1409
January
February -0.3346

Moderate
-0.3701
-0.301
-0.3049

Strong
-0.2314
-0.3194
-0.2459

Table 5. Winter southeast quadrant mean

temperature differences, (whole urban area
quadrant) in C.

The southeast quadrant in the winter is warmer than

the overall urban area for each winter month, and the
magnitude increased for the wind speeds for January.
December and February did not have this trend in
wind speed. Even though the entire hypothesis was
not fulfilled looking at this extra quadrant, it provided
more evidence that the winds do influence the
temperatures in the urban heat island for the entire
urban area.
Next, the overall wind speed categories were
averaged, and then the summer mean temperatures
were subtracted from the winter mean temperatures
in Table 4 above. It was hypothesized that there is a
greater magnitude of differences in the winter than in
the summer. Therefore, it should be seen that these
differences calculated should be negative, indicating
a larger mean for the winter. This was indeed the case
for all of the categories. The hypothesis holds true in
this regard. However, the category differences
actually seemed to decrease in magnitude rather than
increase, so the overall calm, moderate, and strong
wind averages over all months and seasons does not
fit the prediction. Separating the data into the
individual months and seasons does isolate this
pattern.
Overall, July, August, and January
completely fit the hypothesis. However, December
and February had no wind patterns identifiable.
Looking at the data, December had strong winds be
the least difference, and the greatest difference was
the moderate winds. February had strong as the
greatest, but moderate as the least. Some reasons for
this could be that the winds were inaccurately
measured at the stations. The hours obtained to look
at for each speed category were from the ASOS data,
using a few stations throughout the area. More
stations could have been used to get a more accurate
time sampling in the future. In addition, the winds for
the winter were quite variable at times. It was
difficult to isolate a dominant wind. This interesting
pattern of wind speeds and directions could be
another reason why there was no pattern for these
two months. June, on the other hand, did have a wind
magnitude pattern. However, this month did not have
cooler temperatures in the southeast quadrant as
expected. One reason for this could be that June is
right at the end of the transition season months, so the
temperatures are more variable than in the middle of
summer. Looking at the individual data points, the
differences for the days in June were quite small.
Therefore, the temperatures could be very constant
across the city with barely any change. If there are no
winds, then there is nothing to cause a change in

temperatures. June may have been a month with very

calm winds to obtain these results.

6. Conclusions
Overall, the wind did affect the magnitude
of the urban heat island in the Twin Cities. For most
of the months, the quadrant studied is much cooler
than the entire urban area due to the wind advecting
warmer temperature away from this area.
Additionally, it was seen that the magnitude of this
change increases as the wind speed increases for a
majority of the months. While there were some
anomalies, the overall pattern fit the hypothesis quite
well. Finally, the winter season did have more of an
influence compared to the summer, but the
magnitude of this as the winds increased did not have
a distinct pattern.
From Changnons study (1979) about St.
Louis, these results and his findings go quite well
together. He found that convection often occurs
downwind of the urban heat island area. This study
concluded that there is a temperature difference
among windward and leeward urban quadrants.
Therefore, there could possibly be a connection
between this temperature change and the amount of
the convection that occurs and could be the focus of
later study.
If this project was to be repeated in the
future, all of the quadrants for both seasons should be
looked at. This would give even more accuracy to the
conclusions about the temperature and wind
correlations throughout the entire city. In addition,
more ASOS stations should be analyzed to get better
accuracy with what times specific wind speeds were
observed. Other years can be looked at to further
identify a wind speed/temperature pattern. It would
be interesting to look at a year with anomalous
temperatures or weather to see if the same effect is
still observed. Finally, the urban area should be
identified through more than qualitatively observing
the population densities to be more accurate. Using
other cities could be a great study, but a large
temperature data network would need to be
implemented for quite a while.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank many people
for their assistance with this research project. Dr.
Brian Hornbuckle did a wonderful job mentoring the
entire project and checking every step of the process
to make sure everything was running smoothly. Dr.

Tracy Twine kindly provided her urban heat island

temperature network for the Twin Cities area for use
in this research project and was great help
throughout. Dr. Mike Chen helped with the research
process quite a bit as well as narrowing down a topic.

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