Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global crisis with enormous uncertainty. This study aims to explore what role weather plays in pandemic transmission. We hypothesize that weather conditions (temperature, wind speed, and precipitation) significantly influence the transmissibility of the disease and the number of infected people. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing weather variable in moving-average-windows that varied from 1 to 30 days, and daily new confirmed cases observed from 23 counties in the United States, during the period of January 22 to August 19, 2020. We found consistent results that the moving average temperature over 10 days (T<sub>avg10</sub>), the moving average wind speed and the moving average amount of precipitation over 28 days (W<sub>avg28</sub>, P<sub>avg28</sub>) were the meteorological parameters most closely linked to the outbreak and growth of new cases of COVID-19 in the US. The correlation statistics differed regionally: (1) temperature is negatively correlated to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Northeastern US and positively in other areas; (2) wind speed is negatively correlated to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Southeastern US while positively in other areas; and (3) precipitation holds a positive correlation on the east coast of the US and a negative one on the west coast. Our results suggest that meteorological factors may play a significant role in COVID-19 pandemic transmission in the US and should be considered by policy makers and crisis administrators.
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