NOAA ISD: Global Hourly Weather Observations from 35,000 Stations

Over 35,000 stations worldwide contribute to this database, with some records dating back to 1901. The NOAA Integrated Surface Database (ISD) provides global hourly and synoptic weather observations compiled from numerous sources into a fixed-width format. It includes parameters like wind, temperature, pressure, precipitation, and cloud data, with over 14,000 active stations updated daily.

Use Cases

• Train weather forecasting models based on hourly parameters like wind speed, temperature, and pressure.
• Analyze long-term climate trends based on historical data from stations with records back to 1901.
• Model precipitation patterns based on reported precipitation amounts for various time periods.
• Study atmospheric conditions based on synoptic observations including dew point, visibility, and present weather.

Strengths

• Contains data from over 35,000 stations worldwide, providing broad geographic coverage.
• Includes long historical records, with some station data going back to 1901.
• Over 14,000 'active' stations are updated daily, offering recent observations.
• Lists numerous specific meteorological parameters such as wind speed, temperature, dew point, and precipitation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific ML tasks.

Provenance

Source

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Collection Method

Compiled from numerous global observation sources into a gzipped fixed width format.

Time Range

Some data from 1901, with substantial increases in volume noted in the 1940s and early 1970s.

Freshness

Updated daily for active stations, but the last update date for the dataset as a whole is unknown.

Geography

Global