Introduction
The first snowfall in Denver was unseasonably late this year. So I got curious about the data and decided to make a visualization. While this one does communicate with data, it’s taking a bit of artistic license.
This is your challenge as well: create a first snowfall scatterplot with some wintery visual effects. You can decide if you are making a more traditional chart or data art. But please keep accessibility and readability in mind! I made the example using the free HTML Content custom visual.
Requirements
- Retrieve snowfall data from a reputable source. You can use the Denver data as shown in the example, or you can find data for a location of your choice (just try to make sure it goes back at least 40 years so your scatterplot isn’t too sparse).
- Create a measure that shows the amount of snowfall in the first month of each season.
- Create a scatterplot using your Power BI visual of choice (custom or core). Show the season/year on one axis and the month of first snowfall on the other axis. Plot points for the month in each season where the first snow of the season occurred. Make the size of the points correspond to the amount of snowfall in that month.
- Create a tooltip that appears when you hover over each data point that displays the month, season, and snow amount for that point.
- Add design elements related to winter or snow. In the example, the data points have the shape of a snowflake, there is a snowy background image, and the colors are related to snow and winter. And the snowflake data points are animated, falling into place when the report first opens and glowing while the visual remains in view.
Dataset
Data for this challenge can be found at https://www.weather.gov/bou/seasonalsnowfall. This data is supplied by the US National Weather Service. If you would prefer to use data from a different source, that is fine – just make sure you can complete the requirements for the challenge.
Share
After you finish your workout, share on Bluesky or LinkedIn using the hashtags #WOW2025 and #PowerBI, and tag @MMarie, @shan_gsd, @KerryKolosko (on BlueSky).