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NCLIMGRID·dataset

Gridded US temperature and rainfall history (NOAA NClimGrid)

NOAA U.S. Climate Gridded Dataset (NClimGrid)
atmosphere NOAA NOAA active
In plain English

What it measures. Maps of US maximum, minimum, and average temperature plus precipitation, laid out on a regular grid across the Lower 48. A monthly version reaches back to 1895 and a daily version (down to the county level) to 1951.

How it's made. NOAA derives it from the daily ground-station records in GHCN-D, gridding them and applying quality control; preliminary data is later replaced with finalized versions.

How & where you'd use it. A ready-to-use record for tracking US climate trends, drought, and temperature and rainfall patterns over time, including for public health and agriculture.

What's measured

aws-pdsagricultureclimatemeteorologicalweather

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span— → ongoing

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The NOAA Monthly U.S. Climate Gridded Dataset (NClimGrid) consists of four climate variables derived from the GHCN-D dataset: maximum temperature, minimum temperature, average temperature and precipitation. Each file provides monthly values in a 5x5 lat/lon grid for the Continental United States. Data is available from 1895 to the present. On an annual basis, approximately one year of "final" nClimGrid will be submitted to replace the initially supplied "preliminary" data for the same time period. Users should be sure to ascertain which level of data is required for their research. EpiNOAA is an analysis ready dataset that consists of a daily time-series of nClimGrid measures (maximum temperature, minimum temperature, average temperature, and precipitation) at the county scale. Each file provides daily values for the Continental United States. Data are available from 1951 to the present. Daily data are updated every 3 days with a preliminary data file and replaced with the scaled (i.e., quality controlled) data file every three months. This derivative data product is an enhancement from the original daily nClimGrid dataset in that all four weather parameters are now packaged into one file and assembled in a daily time-series format. In addition to a direct download option, an R package and web interface has been developed to streamline access to the final data product. These options allow end users three separate access modes to arrive at a customized dataset unique to each end user’s application. Users should be sure to review the data documentation to inform which level o

Get the data

noaa_access.py
# NOAA Open Data on AWS — public S3, no login
import s3fs

fs = s3fs.S3FileSystem(anon=True)
# find this dataset's bucket in the docs link in the sidebar, then:
# files = fs.ls("noaa-<bucket>/...")
# open NetCDF/GRIB with xarray, COGs with rioxarray
NOAA Open Data is on public AWS S3 — no login at all (anonymous access).