As an aid to its farming industries, Alberta tracks the dates of last frost across the province. At some sites, the last frost occurs in mid-May, while others reach this event a month or more later. Tracking this information in five-day intervals, the accompanying list shows the sequence in which new sites are added to the last-frost list. (For example, two sites had their last frost within the first interval, 12 sites had their last frost in the next interval, and so on.) Find the median of the values, then replace each value by A if it is above the median and by B if it is below the median. Omit from the analysis any values that are exactly at the median. Then apply the runs test to the resulting sequence of As and Bs. What does the result suggest about the pattern in which sites across Alberta are added to the last-frost list? If you knew more about the latitude of each site in relation to its last frost date, might this cause you to reassess your conclusion from the runs test?

Use the runs test of this section to determine whether the given sequence is random. Use a significance level of α = 0.05. (All data are listed in order by row.)

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2 12 17 15 8 10 3 0 0 0 1 Based on Freezing Dates for Alberta Locations," by Peter Dzikowski, Conservation and Development Branch of Alberta Agriculture