Tide Pool Sketch Trips: Climate Clues

A Traveling Sketch Club

The Shore Sketch Club draws tide pools from dry places along rocky shores. Members are planning visits near three cities: Monterey in North America, Cape Town in Africa, and Darwin in Australia. They want to know what conditions to expect before they choose travel months.

The club collects climate summaries based on about 30 years of weather records. Climate describes the usual weather patterns in a place over many years. A day's weather can differ from those patterns. The summaries below give approximate daytime high temperatures for January and July. A daytime high is the warmest temperature during a day. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius, written °C.

Monterey, United States: January 16°C; July 20°C.
Cape Town, South Africa: January 26°C; July 18°C.
Darwin, Australia: January 32°C; July 31°C.

The club also collects average monthly rainfall information. The graphs in the next section show that information. Rain amounts are rounded to the nearest 2 centimeters. A bar showing 0 centimeters means very little rain, not that rain is impossible. Before each visit, an adult will check the local weather forecast and tide schedule.