Surface Inventories/Station Lists

Introduction

• Quick access to NCDC inventories and information is provided below (just click on any file listed below to download). Instructions are also provided at the bottom of this page for accessing these files through anonymous ftp. Some of these files are rather large so special attention to the size is recommended before accessing them through your browser. Additional notes are also available, along with utility software for uncompressing files, etc.

Surface Inventories/Lists

• ASOS STATION LIST (200.0Kbytes)
  MS Excel File--A list of all U.S. ASOS stations for which NCDC receives and processes data.
  
  
• COOPERATIVE STATIONS INDEX (13Mbytes)
  Historical cooperative station index. Cooperative stations are U.S. stations operated by local observers which generally report max/min temperatures and precipitation. National Weather Service (NWS) data are also included in this dataset. The data receive extensive automated + manual quality control. The index includes a county location cross-reference. Over 8000 stations are currently active across the country. *** Due to file size, users should 'load to local disk' (right mouse button on many browsers) instead of attempting to read entire file into memory. See cooperative active stations index below for smaller file with only the currently active stations included. Both files have header record to identify columns for: Cooperative, WBAN, and WMO station numbers; FAA, NWS, and ICAO call letters; country, state, county, time zone, station name, latitude (degrees-minutes-seconds, north=positive, south=negative), longitude (degrees-minutes-seconds, east=positive, west=negative), and elevation (in feet).
  
  
• COOPERATIVE STATIONS INDEX (COMPRESSED) (1.5Mbytes)
  Same as above but compressed for quicker download. Use Winzip or gunzip to uncompress.
  
  
• COOPERATIVE STATIONS INDEX--ACTIVE STATIONS (1.9Mbytes)
  Same as Index above but only includes stations that are still active, thereby providing a much smaller file for downloading.
  
  
• COOPERATIVE STATIONS MAP (35.0Kbytes)
  A 'gif' image map with locations of all currently active cooperative stations in the continental U.S. plotted.
  
  
• COOPERATIVE STATIONS STATE CODES ( 772bytes)
  The 2-digit numbers for each state which correspond to the first 2 digits of the cooperative station numbers.
  
  
• U.S. CLIMATE DIVISIONS ( 4174bytes)
  The square mileage in each climate division, by state (i.e., the individual area weights applied to each division for climatological summaries). Note: if area weight = 0 for climatological purposes, then the square mileage is shown as 0.
  
  
• FIPS ID LIST (26.1Kbytes)
  An alphabetical listing of two-letter FIPS IDs by country
  
  
• *** GLOBAL HOURLY SURFACE DATA INFORMATION: ***
  
  • Use the global country list below to identify the countries (including U.S.) of interest.
  • Then use the global station list to identify the station(s) of interest.
  • Finally, use the global surface inventories to obtain month-by-month inventories showing the volume of data available for each station.
  
  
• INTEGRATED SURFACE HOURLY (ISH) DATABASE STATION LIST (1.1 Mbytes)
  Reference showing the station ID's and information for each station in the Federal Climate Complex ISH global database. ISH is a worldwide database of hourly and synoptic data, derived from TD9956 (DATSAV3 global hourly), TD3280 (US hourly), and TD3240 (US hourly precipitation).
  
  
• INTEGRATED SURFACE HOURLY (ISH) DATABASE INVENTORY (48 Mbytes)
  Reference showing the number of observations by station-year-month in the ISH database.
  
  
• INTEGRATED SURFACE HOURLY (ISH) DATABASE INVENTORY (9 Mbytes)
  Compressed listing for quicker download (see above).
  
  
• GLOBAL COUNTRY LIST (12.6Kbytes)
  Reference showing country names and the associated station number ranges assigned for each country. Use with global inventories.
  
  
• MASTER STATION HISTORY (29.2 Mbytes)
  A historical report, updated monthly, that shows station name changes, IDs and locations over time along with relocation information whenever available. Entries are included for cooperative stations since 1948, as well as all US CRN stations, some ASOS and other surface observing sites.
  
  
• MASTER STATION HISTORY--ZIPPED (2,513 Kbytes)
  PK-zipped version of the Master Station History.
  
  
• MASTER STATION HISTORY (DOCUMENTATION) (2.3 Kbytes)
  Documentation for the layout of the Master Station History report.
  
  
• NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE (NWS) STATION HISTORIES (5.1Mbytes)
  A Wordperfect-5 file with station history summaries for all NWS locations--includes exact station location, anemometer height, etc. *** Use 'load to local disk' (right mouse button on many browsers) due to file size.
  
  
• NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE (NWS) STATION HISTORIES--ZIPPED (880Kbytes)
  PK-zipped version of the NWS station histories file.
  
  
• NWS-USAF-NAVY STATION LIST (5.4Mbytes )
  Historical WBAN index. WBAN's are forms received here at NCDC for National Weather Service and U.S. military stations. This is an index of these locations--many of which have hourly data in digital form. Additional hourly type stations are included in the global surface inventories above. See format file below for format documentation.
  
  
• NWS-USAF-NAVY STATION LIST (COMPRESSED) (500Kbytes)
  Same as above but compressed for quicker download. Use Winzip or gunzip to uncompress.
  
  
• NWS-USAF-NAVY STATION LIST FORMAT (1.0Kbytes)
  Format layout for the NWS-USAF-Navy station list.
  
  
• WBAN-WMO CROSS REFERENCE (125Kbytes)
  WBAN-AWSMSC cross reference--the WBAN index and TD9956 (both mentioned above) cross-referenced with each other.
  
  

GIS Shape Files

• U.S. CLIMATE DIVISIONS BOUNDARY FILES (GIS)
  GIS-compatible shape files for the U.S. climate division boundaries. Can be imported into GIS system to produce maps with climate divisions outlined.
  
  

Anonymous FTP Instructions

1. Enter: open ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov
2. Login is: ftp or anonymous
3. Password is: your email address
4. You are now logged onto a UNIX workstation. Enter help if you'd like a list of available commands.
5. To move to the correct subdirectory, enter: cd /pub/data/inventories.
6. To get a copy of the file descriptions, enter: get README.TXT destination (destination is your output location and name)...e.g.--get README.TXT c:README.TXT - copies to hard drive c: Note that file names are in all CAPITAL letters.
7. Then, to get a copy of any of the inventory files, use the same procedure, such as--get COOP.TXT c:COOP.TXT
8. To logoff the system when finished, enter: bye

Notes

• These files are updated periodically as resources/information allow. To read any of the files (after downloading), you can use an Editor (such as MS Word) or a Spreadsheet. Of course, Fortran or any other programming language may be used also.
  
  
• If you have any technical questions about these inventories, please contact: Climate Services Branch (Phone 828-271-4800, Fax 828-271-4876, Internet ncdc.questions@noaa.gov).
  
  
• The data to which most of these inventories pertain (e.g., hourly surface data) are not available on-line. To place orders for data (magnetic tape, cartridge tape, 8 mm tape, diskette, paper copy), please contact our Climate Services Branch (Phone 828-271-4800, Fax 828-271-4876, Internet ncdc.orders@noaa.gov). To see what data we do have on line, go to our Get/View Climatic Data Page.
  

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http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/surfaceinventories.html
Downloaded Sunday, 21-Sep-2008 05:57:47 EDT
Last Updated Wednesday, 06-Aug-2008 11:47:28 EDT by Mark.Lackey@noaa.gov
Please see the NCDC Contact Page if you have questions or comments.