Garden with Insight v1.0 Help: skew

Skew is the amount of asymmetry around a normal distribution. If a distribution's skew is positive (such as in the example below), the right edge of the distribution is drawn out more than the left. If the skew is negative, the left edge is drawn out.

Usually when a normal distribution is skewed, it means that though many factors influence the value of the variable, one factor is stronger than the others and forces the distribution one way or the other in the experimental circumstances.

This simulation uses a skewed normal distribution to simulate precipitation because that type of distribution best describes the precipitation data for most climates. The amount of skew for the precipitation distribution is included in the climate parameters for each month.