NOAA NCDC / Climate / Get/View Data / NNDC CDO / Help
Climatic Data OnLine (CDO)

System Help and Detailed Information
Receipt and Usage of Data

Domain Resolution/Cost For Data If your domain is gov, mil, edu, .us, or k12 you should have free (no charge) access to NNDC Climate Data Online (NNDC CDO) and other NNDC/NCDC online systems. However, if you have one of these domains and cannot get free access, please contact your systems administrator and have the DNS domain checked on the PC or workstation you are using. It must resolve to gov, mil, edu, or k12 for free access to be provided. If you see an "add to shopping cart" button, then you know you are not receiving free access.
In reference to this problem, you can run this from your browser: Test My Browser. This will output two variables -- REMOTE_ADDR and REMOTE_HOST. REMOTE_HOST should indicate how your domain is being "seen" by our webserver.
For those users without free access to NNDC CDO, we do have selected data online without charge. We should mention that NNDC policies on data charges are based on a partial recovery of the costs (computers, personnel, etc) of providing data to customers.
Connection When a "connection with the server could not be established" error occurs, this indicates a problem in your access to our systems--1) One of our NNDC systems may be experencing problems, or 2) your system may have a problem with its permissions. If this error continues for a day or so, please contact your systems administrator to check the permissions on your system.
Receipt of Data, Decompression, Data Usage After ordering data from the NNDC Online Store, you will receive email that will include the address to access the data. Please highlight and copy this location into your browser. Also, follow any other instructions provided in the email. Files larger than 5 mb will be compressed and have a ".Z" extension. You can use Winzip to uncompress the file on your PC, or gzip -d to uncompress on a unix system. If the email directs you to specific files to ftp, you can use one of the following methods to obtain your data: 
Hint:  Method #1 works well for small files, but for larger files (more
than a few megabytes), method #2 is better.

1) You can copy the exact FTP link(s) into your web browser (eg,
netscape, internet explorer) as the html address, hit return to
transfer the data into your browser, then save to your hard drive.
      OR:
2) While in your email system, right click on the FTP link(s) provided.
This should allow for direct "save as" of the data to your hard drive.
Note:  This FTP directory is not browsable, so you will not be able
to view a directory or see a list of files in the directory.
      OR:
3) Direct FTP:
FTP address where data are located: ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov
FTP login: ftp
FTP password: Your EMAIL address  (ex. customer@customers.address)
Path where data are stored:  /pub/upload
File names at this path:
http://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/upload/filename.ext
http://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/upload/filename.ext
get filename.ext (ftp the file or files to your hard drive).
Handling Compressed Data:

If your data file has a .Z extension, the file has been compressed. You can use Winzip to uncompress the file on your PC, or gzip -d to uncompress on a unix system.
In Winzip , you first "open" the compressed file by highlighting the file from the file list presented in Winzip's "File"...."Open Archive" menu. Then, you highlight and "extract" the file, which uncompresses it to a readable form. Winzip has a help system with further information.
For gzip -d , the link also has information about its usage, and "gzip -h" will provide helpful hints.

Using the Data:

There are a number of ways to use the data:
1) Load it into a spreadsheet (eg, MS Excel)--spreadsheets allow you to open a text file, specify the field delimiter (in the case of CDO data, this would usually be a space or comma), and load the file into the spreadsheet for further manipulation of the data.
2) Browse the data--your web browser can view the text file (if the file isn't too large for your system), or you can use a text editor (change the font to courier to get the characters to line up properly).
3) Write a program--you can write a program (such as Fortran, C, Java) to read the data file and perform various types of analysis.

Questions?? 
If you have problems accessing the data that cannot be resolved as
indicated above, or technical questions about the data, please email
ncdc.questions@noaa.gov or call (828) 271-4800.  Our phone lines
are quite busy, so leave a message or call back later if you cannot
reach someone on your first try.
Additional Help 
NCDC Main Help Page
NNDC Climate Data Online Main Help Page
NCDC Utility Software Page (uncompress files, PDF reader, etc)
NCDC Catalog/List of Online Data
NCDC Inventories and Station Lists (pertaining to online and off-line data)
NCDC Major Digital Datasets
NCDC Papers, Publications, and Reports


http://cdo.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo/syshelp.html
Last updated 21 February 2008 by Debbie Franklin
Please see the NCDC Contact Page if you have questions or comments.