- The National Weather Service (NWS) provides information on current local forecasts, forecast models, climate predictions, and weather safety. If you are looking for current weather data, you might begin with the NWS site because it is a bit easier to navigate than the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) site.
- The NCDC National Climatic Data Center provides access to climatic data from sites in the United States and Worldwide. NCDC provides historical and current data.
- A summary of information about NCDC site free data is available from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/mpp/freedata.html. Some data is free to federal depository libraries while other data sets are available for a fee. The NCDC Help page can provide you with more detailed information about the type and range of products available: .
If the data you need does not appear to be available for free from the NCDC website, contact a documents librarian at a federal depository library in your area. They may be able to provide access to some data which is available to depository libraries.
Guides to Resources
- Weather Data can be difficult to locate and contain complex data elements once found. Some web sites such as the National Weather Service (NWS) provide access to current weather data while the NCDC site is the primary location for historical data.
- The National Weather Service (NWS) provides information on local forecasts, forecast models, climate predictions, and weather safety. The web site also contains links to NOAA web sites that contain information about observations that NWS makes or disseminates including radar, surface weather, river levels, climate monitoring, and satellite data.
- The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is the world's largest archive of weather data. One path for getting to global surface data on the NCDC site is to go to data access tools, then select global surface data. There are links to data by output and search options for searching data by country, station name, or by data set.
- NCDC supports a three-tier national climate services support program. The partners include NCDC, regional climate centers, and state climatologists. The network of regional climate centers offers robust web sites with information about weather and weather data for that region. Most sites have an FAQ or "contact us" link if you need additional information. Most sites offer links to historical data, projects, services, and selected resource links.
- High Plains Regional Climate Center - Lincoln, NE
- Midwestern Climate Center - Champaign, IL
- Northeast Regional Climate Center - Ithaca, NY
- Southeast Regional Climate Center - Chapel Hill, NC
- Southern Regional Climate Center - Baton Rouge, LA
- Western Regional Climate Center - Reno, NV
- For state data websites, see the listing on this module under Additional Resources
- The Southern Regional Climate Center FAQs about climate and weather provide good general information presented in an easy-to-read format.
- This Weather and Climate Glossary from the Western Regional Climate Center provides information on commonly used words and terms.
