Welcome

Below you will find instructions that should help you make a climograph using Microsoft Excel. It was designed with Microsoft Office 2003 in mind. Excel is probably the most widely used spreadsheet program in the world and it has a few graph making features that you will use to make a series of climographs of locations around California

Steps:

1. Open MS Excel. You may need to launch it from your start button on the lower taskbar.  From there, if Excel is installed, you will find it by clicking on All Programs and then you'll find it as one of the programs in Microsoft Office.   These directions are written for MS Office 2003, so your version of Excel may be slightly different.  However, since most of the functions used in this exercise have long been in Excel, most of the directions should still be easy to follow.
2. At the bottom tab on worksheet, double click on the word "Sheet 1" and rename the worksheet Santa Monica. (see screen capture).  Save the file now..use this naming convention: geog417_climo_insert your last name.  So if your last name is Jones, you would save it as: geog417_climo_jones.doc.
3. Return to your browser window.  Open (or reopen) the webpage that has the rainfall data for Santa Monica Pier.  Place your cursor in the blank, upper leftmost cell of the rainfall table (just to the left of "Jan").  Click and drag your cursor down and to the right until all the data in the table is highlighted.  (see screen capture)
4. Press simultaneously the Control button and C (Ctrl + C) to copy the data.  Or you can click on Edit and select copy from the drop down menu in the web browser.
5. Return to Excel (Alt + Tab) and paste (Ctrl + V) the data in to the upper left most cell (the cell in column A, row 1 is cell A1)
   (see screen capture)
6. Return to the browser window (Alt + Tab) and click on the back button.  Select from the list of Santa Monica Pier Data the 24 hr Average Temperature .  Repeat steps 3,4 and 5, copying and pasting the temperature data into Excel, but placing it immediately below the rainfall data.  The blank cell to the left of Jan and above degrees C (°C).  It would be in cell A4.  (see screen capture).
7. Now you have the data necessary to make a climograph, but you must delete some of it to make the graph look better.  First eliminate the rain data recorded in millimeters.  Place your cursor on the number two (2) on to the left of the second column that begins with "mm". Notice that your cursor turns into a bold right pointing arrow (-->)  . Click once to select (or highlight) the entire row. 
8. Click on the word Edit in the menu bar at the top of your window.  From the drop down menu select delete (see screen capture).  The ENTIRE second row of data should disappear.  Repeat the this deletion process with the second set of months and the row of Celsius temperature data.  You should have only the top row of months, followed by a row of "inches" and a row of "° F". 
9. Next, you need to move the year end average one cell away from the monthly data to get a nice graph. Place your cursor on the column N header cell above the word "Year" in cell N1.    This will highlight the column.  Next, select from the "Insert" drop down menu "Column".  This will put a blank column between the year end totals and the December averages.   You are now ready to graph.
10. Place your cursor in cell A1 (upper left) and drag your mouse to cell N3, containing the yearly average for temp (61.2).  All the data should be highlighted. 
11. Next, click on Insert on the top menu bar and select from the drop down menu items "Chart" (see screen capture).
12. A Chart Wizard dialog box will appear and you should click on the top tab labeled "Custom Types".  From the list of custom chart types, select "Line-Column on 2 Axes".  (see screen capture). Click Next.
13. Click the "Next>" button.  All the default options on this "Chart Wizard -Step 2 of 4" dialog box should be OK, but I encourage to at least take a peak at the information and options on the series tab. You may find them useful another day.  Click Next.
14. The "Step 3" dialog window allow you to add page titles and axis titles to your graph, as well as several other options.  Title your graph "Santa Monica Pier: Climograph"  Add appropriate titles to the X axis and both Y axes. You may want to move the legend to the bottom (see screen capture). 
15. Bonus points: Add the latitude, longitude and elevation data for each of the five climographs you make into the secondary X axis box.
16. Click next and make sure the chart (graph) is going to placed as an object in the worksheet you have named Santa Monica.  Click Finish and congratulate yourself on making an electronic version of a climograph.  Save your file before you go any further.
17. Make a climograph for Eureka, California.   You'll need to go back to the home page of worldclimate.com and type in Eureka, CA into their search window box.  Use the data from: EUREKA, CA., UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  Then repeat the steps from above.  Remember to do rainfall first, then temperature.
18. Insert 2 new worksheets into your Excel workbook. To do so, click Insert from top menu bar and select Worksheet from the drop down menu. Press F4 to add a second.
19. Select 3 additional locations in California that are representative of 3 other California climate types.  You may want to pick a high and/or low desert city, a Great Central Valley City, maybe someplace from the San Fernando Valley, or the High Sierras.  Remember to rename each worksheet so that I can identify the location by looking at the worksheet tabs which towns you have picked.
20. Bonus: Comparisons between the locations could be made easier and more useful to viewers if the Y axes are consistent. Double click on an axis. This should bring up a dialog window that allows you to set the maximum and minimum variables (and some other stuff). It may be useful to set the maximum temperature shown on the Y axis at 100 and the precipitation at 100 as well.

Congratulations!