A Great Chart: How Much Hotter This June Has Been

I really like this chart! It hits all of the data visualization design best practices for me. This was published by the NYTimes in the article: Here’s How Much Hotter Than Normal This June Has Been

Here’s what I like:

It’s time series data, so it’s visualized as a line chart

Year-over-year data is easy to compare as overlapping lines for the same Jan-Dec time period

No chart legend! The lines are labeled directly within your field of view in the chart

Using the pre attentive attribute of color, 2023 is highlighted in orange and the rest are gray lines

The chosen orange color isn’t red or green so there isn’t any implication of good or bad

The 2022 line is a darker shade of gray, so it’s also distinguishable, but not the focus

The x-axis labels are only every other month to minimize the text on the page

The is one example of when a non-zero baseline is appropriate so you can see the details

NOTE: This NYTimes article is behind their paywall, so you may not be able to see the original article without a subscription. I have a limited amount of “gift articles” I can share. You can CLICK THIS LINK if you don’t have a subscription and want to see the full article. It will let you see the article until I run out of shares!