(Click above to access the file ndp070.txt
and the entire database.)
United States Historical Climatology Network Daily Temperature, Precipitation,
and Snow Data (1871-1997)
(Date of publication, May 1999)
D. R. Easterling, T. R. Karl, J. H. Lawrimore, and S. A. Del Greco
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Climatic
Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina
This database contains daily
observations of maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation amount,
snowfall amount, and snow depth from 1062 observing stations across the
contiguous United States. This NDP is an expansion and update of the
original 138-station database previously released by CDIAC as NDP-042
in 1992. The 1062 stations in NDP-070 are a subset of the 1221-station
U.S. Historical Climatology Network (HCN), a monthly database
also compiled at NCDC that has been widely used in analyzing U.S. climate.
Data from 1050 of the NDP-070 daily records extend into the 1990s,
while 990 of these extend through 1997. Most station records are
essentially complete for at least 40 years; the latest beginning year of
record is 1948. Records from 158 stations begin prior to 1900, with that
of Charleston, South Carolina beginning the earliest (1871). The daily
resolution of these data makes them extremely valuable for studies attempting
to detect and monitor long-term climatic changes on a regional scale. Studies
using daily data may be able to detect changes in regional climate that
would not be apparent from analysis of monthly temperature and precipitation
data. Such studies may include analyses of trends in maximum and minimum
temperatures, temperature extremes, daily temperature range, precipitation
"event size" frequency, and the magnitude and duration of wet and dry periods.
The data are also valuable in areas such as regional climate model validation
and climate change impact assessment. This NDP and its printed documentation
are available free of charge from CDIAC. The NDP consists of the document and
57 files: 48 daily data files (containing records from stations in each of the
48 contiguous states), station inventory and station history files,
a text file describing all data files, and 6 files containing computer
software routines for reading the data.