The global surface hourly observations contained in this CDROM series are integrated from all of the NCDC and Navy surface hourly data (TD3280), NCDC hourly precipitation data (TD3240), and Air Force DATSAV3 surface hourly data (TD9956). Hourly and synoptic type data for approximately 12,000 global stations are available for 1995-2007. There are a total of 24 volumes separated by geographic region and time period. A station list and map interface allows the user to easily select the data in either Integrated Surface Hourly format or a space-delimited format, for easy import into a spreadsheet or other applications. Various elements such as temperature, dew point, wind speed and direction, sea level pressure, visibility, cloud ceiling, present weather, precipitation, snowfall, snow depth, altimeter setting, station pressure, etc are available, as reported by each station. Each CD volume contains all of the required software, support files, and documentation, so each volume may be used alone or in combination with other volumes for each time period.

* The 2003-2007 DVD sets do NOT include the map interface described above. They contain individual data files for each station, along with all required metadata, documentation, etc. Software is provided on the DVD to convert the data from the archive format (in the data files) to a space-delimited / abbreviated format.

NOTE: A corrupt file exists on volume #8 of this set for Bergstrom AFB (station #722545). Data for this station is available and can be provided by contacting NCDC Customer Service at 828-271-4800, ncdc.orders@noaa.gov .

This product was developed for a Windows environment; MacIntosh and Unix versions are not supported using the map interface. The 2003-2008 DVDs should work in any operating system environment.

Full period of record (1901-present) is available online from the Climate Data Online system.

Data format documentation for 2003-2008 DVD (official ISH archive format)
Surface Data, Global Hourly, Delimited/abbreviated format documentation
Source Code for conversion from full CDROM format (pre-2003 CD's only) to FULL ISH archive format (ishconv.c)
Data sample - Delimited/abbreviated format
Data sample - Full format for CDROM
Station list
Technical Report - Integrated Surface Hourly Development
Inventory
Integrated Surface Database webpage