A heating degree day or HDD is a measurement that is designed to show the demand for energy needed to heat a building. You can calculate a HDD by taking the average of a days high and low temperature and subtracting that value from 65 degrees Fahrenheit. If the HDD is less than or equal to zero then you would take that as a 0 HDD. In order to calculate the mean heating degree days for a month you take the average temperature for the month and subtract that from 65.

For this project, I scrapped data from the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) over the years 1981 to 2017. I merged all these years into one data-set as well as calculated the mean heating degree days for every month. In addition, I plotted the mean HDD for the months January and December. Finally, I did a Posterior predictive check on the January data.

References:

• https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/degree-days.php

• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/heatingdegreeday.asp

• https://www.weather.gov/key/climate_heat_cool