(a) The normal monthly precipitation (in inches) for August is listed for 20 different U.S. cities. Find the mean of the data.
(b) Calculate the standard deviation for the data
Solution: (a) The mean is computed as
(b) By definition, the standard deviation is computed as
Stats Solution Summary
When using descriptive statistics, the mean is used as a measure of center, and the standard deviation is used as a measure of dispersion, which provide a rough view of the distributional properties of the population from which the sample was drawn.
