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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Research Data The Daily Historical Climatology Network

National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, NC March 19, 1998

The 1064-station daily data set for the contiguous United States consists of three elements: Maximum temperature, Minimum temperature, and Precipitation. The units are degrees Fahrenheit and hundredths of inches. Stations in the Daily Historical Climatology Network include long-term stations operated by 'cooperative' (non-paid) observers. Additional stations, chosen from the 1st order National Weather Service station network, were included to increase the spatial resolution. All stations were selected using the following criteria:

A station's potential for heat island bias over time should be low.

It should have maintained a relatively constant observation time.

Reasonably homogeneous spatial distribution over the contiguous U.S. The format of the data file is as follows:

Six-digit station identification number

Four-digit year

Two-digit month

One-digit element number (1=Max, 2=Min, 3=Pcp)

Thirty one fields containing daily values (missing data coded with 9999) Accompanying the data file is the inventory file (available through ftp) containing (in column order), the six-digit ID number, second column not used, Longitude, Latitude, Station Height (feet), and Station Name. These data are available on-line.

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