Publications

Climate Record Books contain daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual averages, extremes, or occurrences. Most data are sequential by period of record 1871-1910, 1911-1930, 1931-1950, 1951-1970, and 1971-1990. Climatological Record Books are prepared and maintained by National Weather Service stations and offices. These books present detailed climatological data for an individual station, or office, for a long period of years. Data are arranged by element by years. The first volume, 1871-1910, was prepared for 202 stations although not all stations had the full period of record. The second volume 1911-1930, is available for 228 stations, the third volume, 1931-1950, is available for 247 stations, and the fourth volume, 1951-1970, is available for 324 stations.

The CDNS was published from 1950 - 1980. Monthly and annual editions contain summarized climatological information from the following publications: Local Climatological Data (LCD), Climatological Data (CD), Monthly Climatic Data for the World (MCDW), Storm Data (SD), Mariners Weather Log (MWL), Weatherwise, Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin (WWCB), Monthly Weather Review (MWR). Data includes a national general summary of weather conditions, observed extremes of temp & precip by states, climatological data by station, heating degree/cooling degree days, flood data and losses, and storm summaries. Upper air data, sunshine and solar radiation data are also summarized. The annual issue each year also contains the year's short rainfall duration statistics, hurricane and typhoon data and storm tracks for various basins, tornado information and long term statistics.

Major US airport weather stations monthly and annual publication containing station daily maximum and minimum temperatures, precipitation amounts, and monthly summaries for heating and cooling degree days. Some stations provide daily snowfall, snow depth, evaporation, and soil temperature data. The annual issue contains monthly and annual averages of temperature, precipitation amounts, temperature extremes, freeze data, soil temperatures, evaporation, and a recap of monthly cooling degree days.

Monthly logs include a daily account of temperature extremes and precipitation, along with snow data at some locations. U.S. Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network stations scattered across the continental U.S., a few from Caribbean and Pacific Island stations. Cooperative stations are assigned a six-digit COOPID in which the first two correspond to the state, and the last four are assigned roughly in alphabetical order by station name. For a complete list of station IDs, see the cooperative station list at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/homr/reports/mshr . Stations that were not a part of the network at the time the reports were submitted are assigned ID 777777

Several different government offices have published the Daily weather maps over its history. The publication has also gone by different names over time. The U.S. Signal Office began publication of the maps as the War Department maps on Jan. 1, 1871. When the government transferred control of the weather service to the newly-created Weather Bureau in 1891 the title changed to the Department of Agriculture weather map. In 1913 the title became simply Daily weather map. Eventually, in 1969, the Weather Bureau began publishing a weekly compilation of the daily maps with the title Daily weather maps (Weekly series). The the principal charts are the Surface Weather Map, the 500 Millibar Height Contours Chart, the Highest and Lowest Temperatures chart and the Precipitation Areas and Amounts chart. This library contains a very small subset of this series: 11Sep1928-31Dec1928, 01Jan1959-30Jun1959, and 06Jan1997-04Jan1998.

The collection consists of monthly weather records from U.S. Army Forts stations (~1820-1871), U.S. Army Signal Service Stations (1871-1892), Smithsonian Institution voluntary observer network (1848-1875), and other stations which conducted weather observations in the 19th century. Observations were generally conducted three times daily, around 7am, 2pm and 9pm. The voluntary and Signal Service stations were transferred to the newly-created U.S. Weather Bureau in 1891. Many of the stations continue on past 1892 in the Cooperative Observations and Surface Weather Observations (1001) libraries. Some keyed data from this series resides in the NCDC digital archive, but the vast majority is held and accessed through the Midwest Regional Climate Center (MRCC), a key partner in digitzation of the records. The MRCC holds keyed data for over 400 stations. All data in this collection were provided to the archive by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The original forms were deteriorating in the National Archives and were converted to microfilm in the late 1930s as part of a Works Projects Administration program. A copy of the set was made for archival at NCDC, and the film was converted to TIFF format images around the year 2000 under the The Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP). The physical collection spans from approximately 1804 until 1893, though some stations extend into the twentieth century. The digital collection includes any digitzed pre-1893 data received from NARA.

Hourly Precipitation Data (HPD) Publication is archived and available from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). This publication contains hourly precipitation amounts obtained from recording rain gauges located at National Weather Service, Federal Aviation Administration, and cooperative observer stations. Published data are displayed in inches to tenths or inches to hundredths at local standard time. HPD includes maximum precipitation for nine (9) time periods from 15 minutes to 24 hours, for selected stations. The HPD publication is also available as digital data set DSI-3240 (C00313).

Local Climatological Data (LCD) contains summaries from major airport weather stations that include a daily account of temperature extremes, degree days, precipitation amounts and winds. Also included are the hourly precipitation amounts and abbreviated 3-hourly weather observations. This is the final quality controlled copy and generally has a one to two month time lag. The local climatological data annual file is produced from the National Weather Service (NWS) first and second order stations. These data are contained in the LCD monthly and annual publications. The monthly summaries include maximum, minimum, and average temperature, temperature departure from normal, dew point temperature, average station pressure, ceiling, visibility, weather type, wet bulb temperature, relative humidity, degree days (heating and cooling), daily precipitation, average wind speed, fastest wind speed/direction, sky cover, and occurrences of sunshine, snowfall and snow depth. The annual summary with comparative data contains monthly and annual averages of the above basic climatological data in the meteorological data for the current year section, a table of the normals, means, and extremes of these same data, and sequential table of monthly and annual values of average temperature, total precipitation, total snowfall, and total degree days. Also included is a station location table showing in detail a history of, and relative information about, changes in the locations and exposure of instruments. The NCDC also archives a Preliminary Local Climatological Data manuscript that contains similar information, but is not quality controlled.

Publication of monthly mean temperature, pressure, precipitation, vapor pressure, and hours of sunshine for approximately 2,000 surface data collection stations worldwide, and monthly mean upper air temperatures, dew point depressions, and wind velocities for approximately 500 observing sites.

NCDC Technical Reports is a set of retrospective analyses produced by the Research Customer Service Group and the National Climatic Data Center from 1995 to 2008. Meteorologists and Physical Scientists at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) produced more than 30 reports on wide-ranging topics from climatologies in Olympic cities to reanalyses of severe weather, flooding, and snow events.

Preliminary Local Climatological Data, recorded since 1970 on Weather Burean Form 1030 and then National Weather Service Form F-6. The preliminary climate data pages consist of 3 parts: Part 1 is the site information including the station location, the month and year of the report, and the latitude and longitude of the station. Part 2 is the daily information which consists of columns of data, with one row of data for each day of the month. The day runs from 0000 to 2359 Local Standard Time (0100 to 0059 Daylight Savings Time). Part 3 of the report (noted as Page 2) is the monthly section which consists of various averages and totals for the month. The forms were submitted to the National Climatic Data Center, where quality control was performed and the data published as Local Climatological Data (LCD).

Satellite instrumentation descriptions, calibration and user manuals produced by NOAA, NASA, and their contractors.

'Storm Data and Unusual Weather Phenomena' is a monthly publication containing a chronological listing, by state, of hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail, floods, drought conditions, lightning, high winds, snow, temperature extremes and other weather phenomena. The reports are provided by the National Weather Service and contain statistics on personal injuries and damage estimates. Storm Data is a publication of the National Climatic Data Center.

The dataset consists of hourly U.S. surface airways observations (SAO). These observations extend as far back as 1928, from the time when commercial aviation began in the United States and meteorological observing stations were established at many airports (although occasionally, early-period SAO's were taken at U.S. Weather Bureau city offices). For most stations, this dataset extends through June of 1948. The major data variables are as follows: WBAN Station Identification Number, observational type, ceiling and cloud, visibility, present weather data, temperature, wind and pressure. The observations are generally recorded for the 24-hour period midnight to midnight, although many stations did not record 24-hour observations, especially early in the period when commercial aviation was just getting started. Two output keying formats were created to adjust to an observational form change during the period. One format was generally used for years 1928-33, and the other for sets from around 1934 through June of 1948. Each keying format was designed to reflect the data as entered on the observational form for ease of keying by key entry personnel, who were not trained meteorological technicians. The "raw" observations which comprise the DSI-3851 dataset were quality checked, to include data adjustments, and converted to NCDC's Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) format. The complimentary data to this collection can be found in the Surface Weather Observation 1001 Forms (Keyed) collection.

The Surface Weather Observation Collection consists primarily of hourly, synoptic, daily, and monthly forms submitted to the archive by the National Weather Service (formerly the U.S. Weather Bureau). Other groups, including the U.S. military and local and state governments have also submitted surface weather observations that are part of this collection. All data within the collection consist of tabulated observations at designated land stations. Observations usually include temperature, precipitation, sky conditions, pressure, and other atmospheric phenomena. Subsets of the collection have been scanned and made available as digital images upon request (see associated resources). These subsets are generally broken down into finer time scale (for example, monthly vs hourly observations) or by a specific time period (for example, pre-1948).

This collection consists of an itemized list of space objects registered by the United States with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. The data in the registry includes basic orbital parameters, a description of the object, and classification. The coverage includes United States low earth orbit, medium earth orbit, geosynchronous earth orbit, lunar rovers, heliocentric, and extended orbit.