Global Historical Weather Station Records for Temperature and Precipitation

Thousands of land stations worldwide provide historical temperature, precipitation, and pressure data. The period of record varies, with several thousand stations extending back to 1950 and several hundred updated monthly. This version 2 dataset was created by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), with temperature data ending in 2011 and precipitation data archived daily since 2012.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term precipitation trends at specific station locations using daily archived data since 2012.
• Reproducing historical climate studies that relied on the version 2 temperature data records ending in 2011.
• Conducting spatial quality checks by comparing station pressure readings against neighboring stations for outlier detection.
• Studying seasonal cycles and climatological means for temperature and precipitation across global land stations.

Strengths

• Data from thousands of land stations worldwide provides broad spatial coverage.
• Rigorous quality assurance includes time series checks, spatial comparisons, and neighbor checks.
• Several hundred stations are updated monthly, providing near-real-time data for precipitation.

Limitations

• The temperature data portion is superseded, with its period of record ending in 2011, making it temporally stale for current analysis.
• Precipitation and temperature data are from different time periods and update frequencies, complicating joint temporal analysis.
• Station density and record length are inconsistent, with only several thousand stations having records back to 1950.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Collection Method

Collected from land-based weather stations worldwide, undergoing pre-processing and multi-stage quality assurance reviews.

Time Range

Varies by station; several thousand extend back to 1950. Temperature data ends 2011; precipitation data archived daily since 2012.

Freshness

Precipitation data is updated monthly; temperature data is static from 2011.

Geography

Global coverage from land stations worldwide.