The Global Forecast System (GFS) is a National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) weather forecast model that generates data for dozens of atmospheric and land-soil variables, including temperatures, winds, precipitation, soil moisture, and atmospheric ozone concentration. The system
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan, generating a deadly tsunami.
Annual temperatures across the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) averaged 54.6°F in 2025, which was 2.6°F above the 20th-century average and ranked as the fourth-warmest year in the 131-year record.
The World Magnetic Model (WMM) is the standard model for navigation, attitude, and heading referencing systems that use the geomagnetic field. The WMM is also used for civilian applications, including navigation and heading systems. A new version of the model is updated every five years to address
The Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) system is a network of 160 high-resolution S-band Doppler weather radars jointly operated by the National Weather Service (NWS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the U.S. Air Force. The NEXRAD system detects precipitation and wind, and its
The Global Historical Climatology Network daily (GHCNd) is an integrated database of daily climate summaries from land surface stations across the globe. GHCNd is made up of daily climate records from numerous sources that have been integrated and subjected to a common suite of quality assurance
Though climate and weather are closely related, they aren't the same thing. The main difference between the two is time.
The U.S. Climate Normals are a large suite of data products that provide information about typical climate conditions for thousands of locations across the United States. Normals act both as a ruler to compare today’s weather and tomorrow’s forecast, and as a predictor of conditions in the near
The Department of Commerce certifies data maintained in the NCEI archive to meet the authentication requirements for records submitted as evidence in a court of law. This page details costs and procedures with accessing that data.
The ETOPO Global Relief Model integrates topography, bathymetry, and shoreline data from regional and global datasets to enable comprehensive, high resolution renderings of geophysical characteristics of the earth’s surface. The model is designed to support tsunami forecasting, modeling, and warning
The Integrated Surface Database (ISD) is a global database that consists of hourly and synoptic surface observations compiled from numerous sources into a single common ASCII format and common data model. ISD integrates data from more than 100 original data sources, including numerous data formats
On February 11-20, 2021, a historical winter event occurred across the state of Texas that set many records, including being the first billion-dollar weather disaster of that year.
The International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) project is the most complete global collection of tropical cyclones available. It merges recent and historical tropical cyclone data from multiple agencies to create a unified, publicly available, best-track dataset that improves