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Annual Climatological Summaries

NOTE: English units are displayed on all output formats.

I. Description

Annual Climatological Summaries provide historical monthly temperature,precipitation, and snow records over thousands of reporting sites in the United

States. The Annual Climatological Summaries database includes 29 meteorological

elements see Table A below for complete list! including temperature monthly

means and e"tremes!, precipitation monthly totals, e"tremes and number of days

various amount thresholds are met!, snowfall, ma"imum snow depth, degree days

and soil temperatures.

II. FormatO!ser"ation De#nitions

#ote$ the term %element& is used throughout this documentation and refers to an individual

meteorological'climatological measurement or statistical value such as temperature, precipitationamount!, etc.!

Users are given the choice between the following three delivery formats$

(! Annual Summary )Annual Climatological Summary)*ortable +ocument ormat

*+! output gives monthly values for all elements see Table A!.

2! Annual Summary )Annual Climatological Summary ASC-- Spreadsheet) utput

is ASC-- te"t /le and user is given the choice whether to include 0ags

attributes!, station name or geographic location in data records. The user

can de/ne which of the observations values! listed in Table A below! to

include in data records.

1! Annual Summary )Annual Climatological Summary ASC-- orm) ptions are

same as 2 above but output is given as CS3 /le for use in spreadsheet

applications.

A. Identi#cation information $location% date% etc.&

4ach record represents all selected observations i.e. elements! available for a given

station)year. The initial section of each record is ordered as follows with the

following de/nitions$

STATION(5 characters! is the station identi/cation code. *lease see

http$''www(.ncdc.noaa.gov'pub'data'ghcn'daily'ghcnd)stations.t"t

for a complete list of stations and their metadata.

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/daily/ghcnd-stations.txthttp://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/daily/ghcnd-stations.txt

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STATION'NA(Ema" 67 characters! is the name of the station usually city'airport

name!. This is an optional output /eld appears automatically on *+ output!.

)EO)*A+,IC'-OCATION1( characters! is the latitude decimated degrees

w'northern hemisphere values 8 7, southern hemisphere values 7!, longitude

decimated degrees w'western hemisphere values 7, eastern hemisphere values8 7! and elevation above mean sea level tenths of meters on te"t'CS3 output and

feet on *+ output!. This is an optional output /eld on te"t'CS3 output.

DATEis the year of the record : digits! followed by month 2 digits!.

ollowing the date the te"t'CS3 output gives the available individual observational

elements as listed and de/ned in Table A below. The *+ output has headings

labeling the observational elements at the top of the form and organi;es

temperature data on the left of the form and precipitation'snowfall data on the

right.

lags$ 4ach observational element on the te"t'CS3 output is followed by the

following 0ag values$

(! uality lag de/ned in Table C below!,

1! #umber of +ays 0ag ) #umber of days is given as 77 when all days in the month

are considered in computing data value or otherwise the ma"imum number of

consecutive days in the month considered in computing the data value.

:! Units 0ag de/ned in Table + below!

#ote$ Users have the option of not including the above 0ag values in te"t'CS3

output formats. Units are de/ned on form for *+ output option.

Ta!le A $o!ser"ations"alues&

All 29 observation'element values are de/ned below. 4ach of these may be includedor e"cluded! on the Custom Annual Climatological Summary ASC-- te"t'CS3 outputand all are also included on the Annual Climatological Summary)*ortable +ocument

ormat *+!. The *+ form includes a summed row at the bottom of the form torepresent the complete year. Any elements with values of 9999 or)9999 mean that data are missing.

ComputedC?++ ) Cooling degree days. These are using a @6 degree ahrenheit base whole

degrees ahrenheit!

+*7( ) #umber of days in month with greater than or eual to 7.( inch of

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precipitation

+*76 ) #umber of days in month with greater than or eual to 7.6 inch of

precipitation

+*(7 ) #umber of days in month with greater than or eual to (.7 inch of

precipitation

+T77 ) #umber days in month with minimum temperature less than or eual to 7.7

+T12 ) #umber days in month with minimum temperature less than or eual to 12.7

+T97 ) #umber days in month with ma"imum temperature greater than or eual

97.7

+B12 ) #umber days in month with ma"imum temperature less than or eual to12.7

T++ ) eating degree days. These are using a @6 degree ahrenheit base whole

degrees ahrenheit!

*recipitation

4

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p is the time of observation code see table !

Custom output te"t and csv! will provide all data in each of the soil temperatureclassi/cations.

Ta!le $(easurement Flag&

A ) Accumulated amount. This value is a total that may include data from aprevious month or months T*C*!.= ) AdJusted Total.

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4 E 4stimated valueM ) 3alue occurred on more than one day E last date of occurrence is used

Ta!le D $0nits&

C )Dhole degree Celsius+ ) Dhole ahrenheit +egree +ay ) Dhole degree ahrenheit- ) undredths of inches- ) Dhole inches< ) Dhole miles

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: E :thsubplotF E Fthsubplot9 E not applicable

Ta!le , $time of o!ser"ation code% p&A E Temperature reading at A< time

* E Temperature reading at *< time9 E not applicable