Does Weather Make People Kill Each Other: Correlation Between Weather Variables and Crime in Multiple Cities

By Jai Gupta

This article aims to explore the relationship between weather and crime by answering the question: To what extent does the weather in cities with varying year-round temperatures have different relationships with both property and violent crime? The current literature has found a significant correlation between the increase in outside temperature with the increase in crime. However, this relationship has not been compared between warm and cold cities with relatively similar city variables, such as demographics, poverty rates, and others. The researcher performed a quantitative, correlational, ex post facto study to address this gap in the literature. The researcher examined three weather variables: average average temperature, average high temperature, and average low temperature across six cities. These six cities were split into three pairs, each pair having a warm and cold city. The researcher found four principle findings: cities with colder year-round temperatures had a more significant correlation between weather and crime; of the weather variables examined, the average low temperature had the strongest relationship with crimes across all cities; between violent and property crime, property crime had a stronger correlation with all weather variables on average; and lastly, as temperature increases across all weather variables, crime, on average, also increased. While more research should be conducted, these findings hope to serve local policy makers and law enforcement on better predicting crime.

Unpublished paper,  (April 30, 2024).