placestats

Homeownership rate and Wet days

Where Homeownership rate is higher, Wet days tends to be higher. The link is weak: +0.31 across 3,089 counties, on a scale from −1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). That figure compares places with the same population density, income and education, so those differences can't explain it. It holds inside states too. Measured separately within each of 39 states, the middle value of the link is +0.02.

Holds after adjusting

Every place, plotted

One dot for each place reporting both measures. Hover over or tap a dot to see its name and values. The thin line is the straight line that best fits the dots. The bold line, shown for counties, is the link after adjusting for density, income and education. A dot far from the lines is a place that does not follow the pattern.

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What each measure is

Homeownership rate

The percentage of lived-in homes that are owned, not rented. Empty homes are left out of the count entirely.

Census ACS 5-year · ACS table B25003_002, divided by occupied housing units

Wet days

The number of days in the year with at least a tenth of an inch of rain or melted snow. NOAA maps each day's weather station readings onto squares about 3 miles wide and averages them over the county. Any rain at all would count too many days: the county average is above zero when a shower wets just one corner. A state's figure is the average of its counties, each weighted by its land area. Lower 48 states only, from 1951.

NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily · NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily v1.0.0 county averages (prcp/tmax/tmin, scaled), wet_days; states, counties averaged by land area

Highest and lowest

Where each measure is highest and lowest among the places reporting both (2023), with the other measure beside it. This is shown for every size of place where both are published. Metro-area values are added up from their counties. A measure that cannot be added up across counties, such as a middle value (median), has no metro figure. Counts are shown per 1,000 residents, since raw totals would only list the largest places. Cities and towns and ZIP codes are shown where the Census survey or the CDC publishes them; most other sources stop at the county. They are shown for places of 5,000 residents or more, and only where the survey’s margin of error is small enough for the figure to be usable. The CDC publishes its health estimates for cities in a version adjusted for age, so places with older or younger people can be compared fairly, but not for ZIP codes.

Counties

By homeownership rate

By wet days

States

By homeownership rate

Homeownership rateWet days
Highest
West Virginia74.3%98.1
Maine74%104
Michigan72.9%78.3
Vermont72.8%104
New Hampshire72.5%102
Lowest
New York54.3%99.2
California55.8%50.6
Nevada59.3%39.7
Texas62.6%45.9
Massachusetts62.6%91

By wet days

Homeownership rateWet days
Highest
Vermont72.8%104
Maine74%104
New Hampshire72.5%102
New York54.3%99.2
West Virginia74.3%98.1
Lowest
Arizona67%32
New Mexico69.3%33.6
Nevada59.3%39.7
North Dakota63.4%43.7
Texas62.6%45.9
Metro areas

By homeownership rate

Homeownership rateWet days
Highest
Wildwood-The Villages, FL88.1%89
Hemlock Farms, PA86.2%87
Holland, MI86.1%89
Homosassa Springs, FL84.8%84
DeRidder, LA83.2%78
Lowest
Pullman, WA46.6%51
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA48.6%38.8
Carbondale, IL49.3%64
Laramie, WY49.4%51
Lawrence, KS49.5%62

By wet days

Homeownership rateWet days
Highest
Astoria, OR61.7%148
Port Townsend, WA79.7%148
Port Angeles, WA72.8%141
Newport, OR71.4%139
Aberdeen, WA72.6%138
Lowest
El Centro, CA56.8%13
El Paso, TX63.7%16.3
Yuma, AZ70%17
Odessa, TX64.4%20
Las Cruces, NM65.3%21
Cities and towns — Wet days is not published for cities and towns

By homeownership rate

Homeownership rateWet days
Highest
East Hills village, NY100%—
White Rock CDP, NM99.6%—
Hooper city, UT99.4%—
Marvin village, NC99.3%—
Todd Creek CDP, CO99.2%—
Lowest
Fort Carson CDP, CO0%—
Air Force Academy CDP, CO0%—
Camp Pendleton Mainside CDP, CA0%—
North Fort Lewis CDP, WA0%—
Lackland AFB CDP, TX0%—
ZIP codes — Wet days is not published for ZIP codes

By homeownership rate

Homeownership rateWet days
Highest
ZIP 29207 (Columbia city, SC)100%—
ZIP 08056 (Gloucester County, NJ)100%—
ZIP 48380 (Oakland County, MI)99.7%—
ZIP 87547 (White Rock CDP, NM)99.6%—
ZIP 06419 (Middlesex County, CT)99.5%—
Lowest
ZIP 01003 (Amherst Town city, MA)0%—
ZIP 99703 (Fairbanks city, AK)0%—
ZIP 99505 (Anchorage municipality, AK)0%—
ZIP 93106 (University of California-Santa Barbara CDP, CA)0%—
ZIP 92136 (San Diego city, CA)0%—

Counties furthest from the pattern

Compared with the straight line that best fits all 3,105 counties: the five with far more wet days than their homeownership rate would suggest, and the five with far less.

Homeownership rateWet days
Above the line
Tillamook County, OR73.2%151
Clatsop County, OR61.7%148
Jefferson County, WA79.7%148
Clallam County, WA72.8%141
Lincoln County, OR71.4%139
Below the line
El Paso County, TX63.7%13
Imperial County, CA56.8%13
Ward County, TX78.4%14
Crane County, TX81.4%15
Winkler County, TX86.5%17

Two series, one county

Both measures over time for a county you pick. The two charts are stacked, so they share only the years along the bottom. You can pick from the thirty largest counties reporting both. This panel covers 2010–2024, and a measure published only once shows as a single dot.

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Every version of the link

Each row measures the same link, from −1 to +1, in a different way. If the rows mostly agree, the link does not depend on one choice of method.

Before adjusting for anything+0.0083,089 counties reporting both
After adjusting for density, income and education+0.312the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is
Also adjusting for population size+0.297size taken out as well as density
Also comparing only within each state+0.218each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states
Also holding winter sunshine equal+0.275compares counties that get the same sunlight in winter as well. If this is much weaker, part of the link is a difference between sunny and grey regions (more)
Giving bigger counties more weight+0.330the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 284 equally weighted counties
Middle value inside single states+0.023the link worked out inside each of 39 states with at least 20 counties reporting
Using ranks, after adjusting+0.273uses each county’s rank, not its value, so a few extreme counties cannot create the link

How much to believe it

Could it be chance?

The p-value is the chance of seeing a link this strong if there were really none. A value of 0.05 or less means the link is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 3.1e-16 means 0.00000000000000031, and the bigger the number after “e-”, the smaller the value. Treating every county as a separate case gives p = 1.5e-70. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 1.8e-8. The site tested 32,131 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 1.2e-69.

Do nearby places look alike?

Moran’s I measures how much nearby places look alike: 0 means no map pattern, and higher means neighbours are more similar. For the part of each county that the adjustment leaves unexplained, it is +0.72 (p = 0.001). That unexplained part still clusters on the map. So some regional factor shared by both measures is not accounted for.

Did they change together?

The figures above compare counties at one moment. This asks a different question: where homeownership rate rose most, did wet daysmove too? Each county’s change is compared with the average change in its own state. That takes out ups and downs that hit a whole region at once. Each change is the gap between two estimates that both contain some error. That error pulls these links towards zero, so a weak one is weak partly for that reason. The q column shows whether a link could be a fluke, allowing for the many pairs tested: 0.05 or less means it is unlikely to be chance.

PeriodCountiesChange togetherWithin statesq
2014–2019 the main test: each Census survey figure averages five years, and these two do not overlap; before the pandemic3,104-0.02+0.000.999
2019–2023 a repeat check: its two five-year survey figures both include 2019, and it covers the COVID years3,105+0.05+0.040.106

Over the main period, any link between the changes could easily be chance. How change is measured.

Related pairs

Association only. Nothing here shows that either measure changes the other. This describes counties, not the people in them. Two measures going together across places does not mean the same people have both. How the US county data works · Explore Homeownership rate and Wet days