Abstract
This study explores the association between daily weather and shooting incidents in New York City spanning from 2006 to 2022. While many analyses concentrate on specific weather elements such as temperature or precipitation, our investigation adopts a unique approach by considering air mass type in addition to more traditional meteorological variables. We aim to offer a more comprehensive understanding of how daily weather conditions might impact violent crime occurrences. We employ two non-parametric statistical tests, Spearman’s Ranked Correlation Coefficient to evaluate the relationship between temperature and shooting incidents, and a Kruskal-Wallis test to explore shooting associations with precipitation and air mass type. After controlling for important social factors such as day of week and holidays, results highlight statistically significant associations between shooting incidents and all three meteorological variables (temperature, precipitation, air mass type). Season also plays an important role in weather-shooting associations, and results are consistent across all five boroughs.
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