CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA (CD) PRELIMINARY QUALITY ASSURANCE REPORT (QAR) (Last Updated: 11/17/2011) 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 OVERVIEW The Quality Assurance Report (QAR) identifies cooperative data observing and recording inconsistencies detected by the National Climatic Data Center. This report lists stations having missing temperature or precipitation data, and temperature inconsistencies at least nine times for the data month listed. A description of the categories follows: a) TEMPERATURE-INCONSISTENCIES - Often Cooperative observers record maximum/minimum temperatures that are inconsistent with observation time temperature or with each other (Example: an observer records a minimum temperature greater than the observation time temperature or the maximum temperature). Temperature inconsistencies are a common error among Cooperative stations; however, most stations only have a small number of temperature inconsistencies which suggests that recording practices for temperature for most stations is not problematic. Therefore, Cooperative stations with less than 8 temperature inconsistencies are not reflected on this report. b) MISSING DAYS - If a station reported nine or more missing values for the month, it appears in this report. Nine days is used for the following two reasons: 1) To keep the report at the manageable size of approximately 10 pages; 2) Generating temperature replacement values is difficult when using stations with 8 or more days of data that are missing or in error. A more comprehensive report is generated at the end of a data month's quality control process at NCDC. 1.2 INTERNET ACCESS The CD Preliminary QAR can be accessed at the following location: www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/hofn/coop/coop-home.html 1.3 DOWNLOADING There are two versions of the CD Prelim. QAR: a. qarMMYY.pdf qar = Quality Assurance Report MM = 2-Digit Numerical Month (e.g. 01 = January, ... 12 = December) YY = 2-Digit Numerical Year (e.g. 2011 = 11) .pdf = Adobe Acrobat Format (requires a PDF Viewer to access and display) As of the July 2011 Data-Month, the following changes have been made to the PDF Version of the CD Prelim. QAR: - The version of the GHCN-Daily Dataset used in creating the report is displayed. - A timestamp of when the respective CD Prelim. QAR was generated is included. - The list is sorted by NWS Region, State, Station ID and Climate Division. - Headers appear which indicate that each section is a respective NWS Region's Stations. - Additionally, NWS WFO ID's are included with each Station ID Number. b. qarMMYY.csv (available for the July 2011 Data-Month and fowrard) qar = Quality Assurance Report MM = 2-Digit Numerical Month (e.g. 01 = January, ... 12 = December) YY = 2-Digit Numerical Year (e.g. 2011 = 11) .csv = Comma-Delimited Text Format (can be displayed via Microsoft Excel) There are no headers included in the .csv version. As a result, here's the format of the data itself: Column A: National Weather Service (NWS) Region - ALASKAN - CENTRAL - EASTERN - PACIFIC - SOUTHERN - WESTERN Column B: Station ID (SS-####-CD) - SS = Two-Letter State ID - #### = Four-Number Station ID - CD = Two-Digit Climate Division Column C: NWS Weather Forecast Office (WFO) Identifier - Three-Letter Format (e.g. GSP = Greer, SC) Column D: # Maximum Temperature Days Missing Column E: # Minimum Temperature Days Missing Column F: # of Days Flagged with Temperature Inconsistencies Column G: # of Precipitation Days Missing Column H: Latitute in Decimal Degrees Format Column I: Longitude in Decimal Degrees Format Column J: Elevation in Feet 2. DATA 2.1 METADATA The metadata used to generate the CD Prelim. QAR Report is provided by NCDC's Metadata Team via the Publication Historical Record (PHR) and/or the Master Station History Record (MSHR). Web links to both files will be added to this Readme File in the near future. In the meantime, for access to NCDC's Available Metadata, please go to http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/surfaceinventories.html . 2.2 DATA Effective for the January 2011 Data-Month and forward, Cooperative Observer Data will be available for access in the Global Historical Climatological Network-Daily (GHCN-Daily) Dataset. For more information about the GHCN-Daily Dataset, please go to http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-daily/ . 3. CONTACT 3.1 QUESTIONS AND FEEDBACK Bryant.Korzeniewski@noaa.gov 3.2 OBTAINING ARCHIVED VERSIONS At this time, the National Climatic Data Center does not maintain an online ftp archive of daily processed CD Prelim. QAR's. On the CD Prelim. QAR Website ( http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/hofn/coop/coop-home.html ), the recent and current data-years' of reports are available for access. In the future, it is anticipated that NCDC's archival requirements will necessitate the need to archive each run of the CD Prelim. QAR.