The U.S. Climate Normals are a large suite of data products that provide information about typical climate conditions for thousands of locations across the United States. Normals act both as a ruler to compare today’s weather and tomorrow’s forecast, and as a predictor of conditions in the near future. The official normals are calculated for a uniform 30 year period, and consist of annual/seasonal, monthly, daily, and hourly averages and statistics of temperature, precipitation, and other climatological variables from almost 15,000 U.S. weather stations. NCEI generates the official U.S. normals every 10 years in keeping with the needs of our user community and the requirements of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and National Weather Service (NWS). The 1991–2020 U.S. Climate Normals are the latest in a series of decadal normals first produced in the 1950s. These data allow travelers to pack the right clothes, farmers to plant the best crop varieties, and utilities to plan for seasonal energy usage. Many other important economic decisions that are made beyond the predictive range of standard weather forecasts are either based on or influenced by climate normals. This public dataset is hosted in Google Cloud Storage and available free to use. Use this quick start guide to quickly learn how to access public datasets on Google Cloud Storage.

The U.S. Daily Climate Normals for 1981 to 2010 are 30-year averages of meteorological parameters for thousands of U.S. stations located across the 50 states, as well as U.S. territories, commonwealths, the Compact of Free Association nations, and one station in Canada. NOAA Climate Normals are a large suite of data products that provide users with many tools to understand typical climate conditions for thousands of locations across the United States. As many NWS stations as possible are used, including those from the NWS Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network as well as some additional stations that have a Weather Bureau Army-Navy (WBAN) station identification number, including stations from the Climate Reference Network (CRN). The comprehensive U.S. Climate Normals dataset includes various derived products including daily air temperature normals (including maximum and minimum temperature normal, heating and cooling degree day normal, and others), precipitation normals (including snowfall and snow depth, percentiles, frequencies and other), and hourly normals (all normal derived from hourly data including temperature, dew point, heat index, wind chill, wind, cloudiness, heating and cooling degree hours, pressure normals). Users can access the data either by product or by station. Included in the dataset is extensive documentation to describe station metadata, filename descriptions, and methodology of producing the data. All data utilized in the computation of the 1981-2010 Climate Normals were taken from the ISD Lite (a subset of derived Integrated Surface Data), the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily dataset, and standardized monthly temperature data (COOP). These source datasets (including intermediate datasets used in the computation of products) are also archived at the NOAA NCDC.

These daily weather records were compiled from a subset of stations in the Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN)-Daily dataset. A weather record is considered broken if the value exceeds the maximum (or minimum) value recorded for an eligible station. A weather record is considered tied if the value is the same as the maximum (or minimum) value recorded for an eligible station. Daily weather parameters include Highest Min/Max Temperature, Lowest Min/Max Temperature, Highest Precipitation, Highest Snowfall and Highest Snow Depth. All stations meet defined eligibility criteria. For this application, a station is defined as the complete daily weather records at a particular location, having a unique identifier in the GHCN-Daily dataset. For a station to be considered for any weather parameter, it must have a minimum of 30 years of data with more than 182 days complete in each year. This is effectively a 30-year record of service requirement, but allows for inclusion of some stations which routinely shut down during certain seasons. Small station moves, such as a move from one property to an adjacent property, may occur within a station history. However, larger moves, such as a station moving from downtown to the city airport, generally result in the commissioning of a new station identifier. This tool treats each of these histories as a different station. In this way, it does not thread the separate histories into one record for a city. Records Timescales are characterized in three ways. In order of increasing noteworthiness, they are Daily Records, Monthly Records and All Time Records. For a given station, Daily Records refers to the specific calendar day: (e.g., the value recorded on March 7th compared to every other March 7th). Monthly Records exceed all values observed within the specified month (e.g., the value recorded on March 7th compared to all values recorded in every March). All-Time Records exceed the record of all observations, for any date, in a station's period of record. The Date Range and Location features are used to define the time and location ranges which are of interest to the user. For example, selecting a date range of March 1, 2012 through March 15, 2012 will return a list of records broken or tied on those 15 days. The Location Category and Country menus allow the user to define the geographic extent of the records of interest. For example, selecting Oklahoma will narrow the returned list of records to those that occurred in the state of Oklahoma, USA. The number of records broken for several recent periods is summarized in the table and updated daily. Due to late-arriving data, the number of recent records is likely underrepresented in all categories, but the ratio of records (warm to cold, for example) should be a fairly strong estimate of a final outcome. There are many more precipitation stations than temperature stations, so the raw number of precipitation records will likely exceed the number of temperature records in most climatic situations.

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 of data is required for their research.

This dataset replaces the previous Time Bias Corrected Divisional Temperature-Precipitation Drought Index. The new divisional data set (NClimDiv) is based on the Global Historical Climatological Network-Daily (GHCN-D) and makes use of several improvements to the previous data set. For the input data, improvements include additional station networks, quality assurance reviews and temperature bias adjustments. Perhaps the most extensive improvement is to the computational approach, which now employs climatologically aided interpolation. This 5km grid based calculation nCLIMGRID helps to address topographic and network variability. This data set is primarily used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) to issue State of the Climate Reports on a monthly basis. These reports summarize recent temperature and precipitation conditions and long-term trends at a variety of spatial scales, the smallest being the climate division level. Data at the climate division level are aggregated to compute statewide, regional and national snapshots of climate conditions. For CONUS, the period of record is from 1895-present. Derived quantities such as Standardized precipitation Index (SPI), Palmer Drought Indices (PDSI, PHDI, PMDI, and ZNDX) and degree days are also available for the CONUS sites. In March 2015, data for thirteen Alaskan climate divisions were added to the NClimDiv data set. Data for the new Alaskan climate divisions begin in 1925 through the present and are included in all monthly updates. Alaskan climate data include the following elements for divisional and statewide coverage: average temperature, maximum temperature (highs), minimum temperature (lows), and precipitation. The Alaska NClimDiv data were created and updated using similar methodology as that for the CONUS, but with a different approach to establishing the underlying climatology. The Alaska data are built upon the 1971-2000 PRISM averages whereas the CONUS values utilize a base climatology derived from the NClimGrid data set. As of November 2018, NClimDiv includes county data and additional inventory files.

The number of billion-dollar disasters stood at *** events in the period between 2010 and 2019. This is double the number in the previous decade. While increased costs due to the disasters are likely due to higher exposure of vulnerable high-value assets, climate change also plays a role in the intensity and frequency of some climatological events.

The average temperature in December 2024 was 38.25 degrees Fahrenheit in the United States, the fourth-largest country in the world. The country has extremely diverse climates across its expansive landmass. Temperatures in the United States On the continental U.S., the southern regions face warm to extremely hot temperatures all year round, the Pacific Northwest tends to deal with rainy weather, the Mid-Atlantic sees all four seasons, and New England experiences the coldest winters in the country. The North American country has experienced an increase in the daily minimum temperatures since 1970. Consequently, the average annual temperature in the United States has seen a spike in recent years. Climate Change The entire world has seen changes in its average temperature as a result of climate change. Climate change occurs due to increased levels of greenhouse gases which act to trap heat in the atmosphere, preventing it from leaving the Earth. Greenhouse gases are emitted from various sectors but most prominently from burning fossil fuels. Climate change has significantly affected the average temperature across countries worldwide. In the United States, an increasing number of people have stated that they have personally experienced the effects of climate change. Not only are there environmental consequences due to climate change, but also economic ones. In 2022, for instance, extreme temperatures in the United States caused over 5.5 million U.S. dollars in economic damage. These economic ramifications occur for several reasons, which include higher temperatures, changes in regional precipitation, and rising sea levels.

The average temperature in the contiguous United States reached 55.5 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) in 2024, approximately 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th-century average. These levels represented a record since measurements started in ****. Monthly average temperatures in the U.S. were also indicative of this trend. Temperatures and emissions are on the rise The rise in temperatures since 1975 is similar to the increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. Although CO₂ emissions in recent years were lower than when they peaked in 2007, they were still generally higher than levels recorded before 1990. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is the main driver of climate change. Extreme weather Scientists worldwide have found links between the rise in temperatures and changing weather patterns. Extreme weather in the U.S. has resulted in natural disasters such as hurricanes and extreme heat waves becoming more likely. Economic damage caused by extreme temperatures in the U.S. has amounted to hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars over the past few decades.

The Monthly Climate Normals for 1991 to 2020 are 30-year averages of meteorological parameters that provide users the information needed to understand typical climate conditions for thousands of locations across the United States, as well as U.S. Territories and Commonwealths, and the Compact of Free Association nations. The stations used include those from the NWS Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network as well as some additional stations that have a Weather Bureau Army-Navy (WBAN) station identification number, including stations from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) and other automated observation stations. In addition, precipitation normals for stations from the U.S. Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) Network and the citizen-science Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS) Network are also available. The Monthly Climate Normals dataset includes various derived products such as air temperature normals (including maximum and minimum temperature normals, heating and cooling degree day normals, and others), precipitation normals (including precipitation and snowfall totals, and percentiles, frequencies and other statistics of precipitation, snowfall, and snow depth), and agricultural normals (growing degree days (GDDs)). All data utilized in the computation of the 1991-2020 Climate Normals were taken from the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily and -Monthly datasets. Temperatures were homogenized, adjusted for time-of-observation, and made serially complete where possible based on information from nearby stations. Precipitation totals were also made serially complete where possible based using nearby stations. The source datasets (including intermediate datasets used in the computation of products) are also archived at NOAA NCEI. A comparatively small number of station normals sets (~50) have been added as Version 1.0.1 to correct quality issues or because additional historical data during the 1991-2020 period has been ingested.

In March 2015, data for thirteen Alaskan climate divisions were added to the NClimDiv data set. Data for the new Alaskan climate divisions begin in 1925 through the present and are included in all monthly updates. Alaskan climate data include the following elements for divisional and statewide coverage: average temperature, maximum temperature (highs), minimum temperature (lows), and precipitation. The Alaska NClimDiv data were created and updated using similar methodology as that for the CONUS, but with a different approach to establishing the underlying climatology. The Alaska data are built upon the 1971-2000 PRISM averages whereas the CONUS values utilize a base climatology derived from the NClimGrid data set. In January 2025, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) began summarizing the State of the Climate for Hawaii. This was made possible through a collaboration between NCEI and the University of Hawaii/Hawaii Climate Data Portal and completes a long-standing gap in NCEI's ability to characterize the State of the Climate for all 50 states. NCEI maintains monthly statewide, divisional, and gridded average temperature, maximum temperatures (highs), minimum temperature (lows) and precipitation data for Hawaii over the period 1991-2025. As of November 2018, NClimDiv includes county data and additional inventory files In March 2015, data for thirteen Alaskan climate divisions were added to the NClimDiv data set. Data for the new Alaskan climate divisions begin in 1925 through the present and are included in all monthly updates. Alaskan climate data include the following elements for divisional and statewide coverage: average temperature, maximum temperature (highs), minimum temperature (lows), and precipitation. The Alaska NClimDiv data were created and updated using similar methodology as that for the CONUS, but with a different approach to establishing the underlying climatology. The Alaska data are built upon the 1971-2000 PRISM averages whereas the CONUS values utilize a base climatology derived from the NClimGrid data set.

As of November 2018, NClimDiv includes county data and additional inventory files.

This map displays projected visible surface smoke across the contiguous United States for the next 48 hours in 1 hour increments. It is updated every 24 hours by NWS. Concentrations are reported in micrograms per cubic meter.Where is the data coming from?The National Digital Guidance Database (NDGD) is a sister to the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD). Information in NDGD may be used by NWS forecasters as guidance in preparing official NWS forecasts in NDFD. The experimental/guidance NDGD data is not an official NWS forecast product.Source: https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/SL.us008001/ST.opnl/DF.gr2/DC.ndgd/GT.aq/AR.conus/ds.smokes01.binSource data archive can be found here: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/weather-climate-models/national-digital-guidance-database look for 'LXQ...' files by date. These are the Binary GRIB2 files that can be decoded via DeGRIB tool.Where can I find other NDGD data?The Source data is downloaded and parsed using the Aggregated Live Feeds methodology to return information that can be served through ArcGIS Server as a map service or used to update Hosted Feature Services in Online or Enterprise.What can you do with this layer?This map service is suitable for data discovery and visualization. Identify features by clicking on the map to reveal the pre-configured pop-ups. View the time-enabled data using the time slider by Enabling Time Animation.RevisionsJuly 11, 2022: Feed updated to leverage forecast model change by NOAA, whereby the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) forecast model system was replaced with the Rapid Refresh (RAP) forecast model system. Key differences: higher accuracy with RAP now concentrated at 0-8 meter detail vs HYSPLIT at 0-100 meter; earlier data delivery by 6 hrs; forecast output extended to 51 hrs.This map is provided for informational purposes and is not monitored 24/7 for accuracy and currency.If you would like to be alerted to potential issues or simply see when this Service will update next, please visit our Live Feed Status Page!

As global emissions and temperatures continue to rise, global climate models offer projections as to how the climate will change in years to come. These model projections can be used for a variety of end-uses to better understand how current systems will be affected by the changing climate. While climate models predict every individual year, using a single year may not be representative as there may be outlier years. It can also be useful to represent a multi-year period with a single year of data. Both items are currently addressed when working with past weather data by a using Typical Meteorological Year (TMY)methodology. This methodology works by statistically selecting representative months from a number of years and appending these months to achieve a single representative year for a given period. In this analysis, the TMY methodology is used to develop Future Typical Meteorological Year (fTMY) using climate model projections. The resulting set of fTMY data is then formatted into EnergyPlus weather (epw) fi les that can be used for building simulation to estimate the impact of climate scenarios on the built environment.

This dataset contains the individual-climate-model version fTMY files for 3281 US Counties in the continental United States. The data for each county is derived from six different global climate models (GCMs) from the 6th Phase of Coupled Models Intercomparison Project CMIP6-ACCESSCM2, BCC-CSM2-MR, CNRM-ESM2-1, MPI-ESM1-2-HR, MRI-ESM2-0, NorESM2-MM. The six climate models were statistically downscaled for 1980–2014 in the historical period and 2015–2100 in the future period under the SSP585 scenario using the methodology described in Rastogi et al. (2022). Additionally, hourly data was derived from the daily downscaled output using the Mountain Microclimate Simulation Model (MTCLIM; Thornton and Running, 1999). The shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) used for this analysis was SSP 1 and the representative concentration pathway (RCP) used was RCP 2.6. More information about SSP and RCP can be referred to O'Neill et al. (2020).

Please be aware that in cases where a location contains multiple .EPW files, it indicates that there are multiple weather data collection points within that location.

More information about the six selected CMIP6 GCMs:

ACCESS-CM2 -
http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/ES19040
BCC-CSM2-MR -
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-2977-2021
CNRM-ESM2-1-
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001791
MPI-ESM1-2-HR -
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3241-2019
MRI-ESM2-0 -
https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2019-051
NorESM2-MM -
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6165-2020

Additional references:
O'Neill, B. C., Carter, T. R., Ebi, K. et al. (2020). Achievements and Needs for the Climate Change Scenario Framework.
Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 1074–1084 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00952-0
Rastogi, D., Kao, S.-C., and Ashfaq, M. (2022). How May the Choice of Downscaling Techniques and Meteorological Reference Observations Affect Future Hydroclimate Projections? Earth's Future, 10, e2022EF002734. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002734Thornton, P. E. and Running, S. W. (1999). An Improved Algorithm for Estimating Incident Daily Solar Radiation from Measurements of Temperature, Humidity and Precipitation, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 93, 211-228.

Please cite the following if this data is used in any research or project:

Shovan Chowdhury, Fengqi Li, Avery Stubbings, Joshua R. New (2023). “Multi-Model Future Typical Meteorological (fTMY) Weather Files for nearly every US County.” The 3rd ACM International Workshop on Big Data and Machine Learning for Smart Buildings and Cities and BuildSys '23: The 10th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation, Istanbul, Turkey, November 15-16, 2023. DOI: 10.1145/3600100.3626637

Cross-Model Version:

Representative Cities Version:

Bass, Brett, New, Joshua R., Rastogi, Deeksha and Kao, Shih-Chieh (2022). "Future Typical Meteorological Year (fTMY) US Weather Files for Building Simulation (1.0) [Data set]." Zenodo, doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6939750, Aug. 2022. [<a

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. In March 2015, new Alaska data was included in the nClimDiv dataset. The Alaska nClimDiv data were created and updated using similar methodology as that for the CONUS. It includes maximum temperature, minimum temperature, average temperature and precipitation. In January 2025, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) began summarizing the State of the Climate for Hawaii. This was made possible through a collaboration between NCEI and the University of Hawaii/Hawaii Climate Data Portal and completes a long-standing gap in NCEI's ability to characterize the State of the Climate for all 50 states. NCEI maintains monthly statewide, divisional, and gridded average temperature, maximum temperatures (highs), minimum temperature (lows) and precipitation data for Hawaii over the period 1991-2025.

Hourly Precipitation Data (HPD) is digital data set DSI-3240, archived at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The primary source of data for this file is approximately 5,500 US National Weather Service (NWS), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and cooperative observer stations in the United States of America, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and various Pacific Islands. The earliest data dates vary considerably by state and region: Maine, Pennsylvania, and Texas have data since 1900. The western Pacific region that includes Guam, American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau have data since 1978. Other states and regions have earliest dates between those extremes. The latest data in all states and regions is from the present day. The major parameter in DSI-3240 is precipitation amounts, which are measurements of hourly or daily precipitation accumulation. Accumulation was for longer periods of time if for any reason the rain gauge was out of service or no observer was present. DSI 3240_01 contains data grouped by state; DSI 3240_02 contains data grouped by year.

The monthly average temperature in the United States between 2020 and 2025 shows distinct seasonal variation, following similar patterns. For instance, in April 2025, the average temperature across the North American country stood at 12.02 degrees Celsius. Rising temperatures Globally, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2024 were some of the warmest years ever recorded since 1880. Overall, there has been a dramatic increase in the annual temperature since 1895. Within the U.S. annual temperatures show a great deal of variation depending on region. For instance, Florida tends to record the highest maximum temperatures across the North American country, while Wyoming recorded the lowest minimum average temperature in recent years. Carbon dioxide emissions Carbon dioxide is a known driver of climate change, which impacts average temperatures. Global historical carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels have been on the rise since the industrial revolution. In recent years, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes reached over 37 billion metric tons. Among all countries globally, China was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2023.

Q: Was the month cooler or warmer than usual? A: Colors show where and by how much the monthly average temperature differed from the month’s long-term average temperature from 1991-2020. Red areas were warmer than the 30-year average for the month, and blue areas were cooler. White and very light areas had temperatures close to the long-term average. Q: Where do these measurements come from? A: Daily temperature readings come from weather stations in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN-D). Volunteer observers or automated instruments collect the highest and lowest temperature of the day at each station over the entire month, and submit them to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). After scientists check the quality of the data to omit any systematic errors, they calculate each station’s monthly average of daily mean temperatures, then plot it on a 5x5 km gridded map. To fill in the grid at locations without stations, a computer program interpolates (or estimates) values, accounting for the distribution of stations and various physical relationships, such as the way temperature changes with elevation. The resulting product is the NOAA Monthly U.S. Climate Gridded Dataset (NClimGrid). To calculate the difference-from-average temperatures shown on these maps—also called temperature anomalies—NCEI scientists take the average temperature in each 5x5 km grid box for a single month and year, and subtract its 1991-2020 average for the same month. If the result is a positive number, the region was warmer than average. A negative result means the region was cooler than usual. Q: What do the colors mean? A: Shades of blue show places where average monthly temperatures were below their long-term average for the month. Areas shown in shades of pink to red had average temperatures that were warmer than usual. The darker the shade of red or blue, the larger the difference from the long-term average temperature. White and very light areas show where average monthly temperature was the same as or very close to the long-term average. Q: Why do these data matter? A: Comparing an area’s recent temperature to its long-term average can tell how warm or how cool the area is compared to usual. Temperature anomalies also give us a frame of reference to better compare locations. For example, two areas might have each had recent temperatures near 70°F, but 70°F could be above average for one location while below average for another. Knowing an area is much warmer or much cooler than usual can encourage people to pay close attention to on-the-ground conditions that affect daily life and decisions. People check maps like this to judge crop progress, estimate energy use, consider snow and lake ice melt; and to understand impacts on wildfire regimes. Q: How did you produce these snapshots? A: Data Snapshots are derivatives of existing data products: to meet the needs of a broad audience, we present the source data in a simplified visual style. This set of snapshots is based on NClimGrid climate data produced by and available from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). To produce our images, we invoke a set of scripts that access the source data and represent them according to our selected color ramps on our base maps. Q: Data Format Description A: NetCDF (Version: 4) Additional information The data used in these snapshots can be downloaded from different places and in different formats. We used these specific data sources: NClimGrid Average Temperature NClimGrid Temperature Normals References NOAA Monthly U.S. Climate Gridded Dataset (NClimGrid) NOAA Monthly U.S. Climate Divisional Database (NClimDiv) Improved Historical Temperature and Precipitation Time Series for U.S. Climate Divisions NCEI Monthly National Analysis Cl

Link to landing page referenced by identifier. Service Protocol: Link to landing page referenced by identifier. Link Function: information-- dc:identifier.

The summaries of daily land surface observations in this data set are primarily from stations in the National Weather Service (NWS) cooperative station network, but also include NWS principal (first order) climatological stations, and stations supported by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service (USFC), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), along with a handful of stations at Air Force and Navy bases. The sites are located in the contiguous U.S., Alaska, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Hawaii and other Pacific Islands. The major parameters are daily weather, precipitation, snowfall, snow depth, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and observation temperature. The earliest data is for 1854, but most stations begin in 1948. Periods of record vary widely among the stations.

The U.S. Hourly Climate Normals for 2006 to 2020 provide users supplemental hourly normals for specialized applications for hundreds of U.S. stations located across the 50 states, as well as U.S. Territories and Commonwealths, and the Compact of Free Association nations. These stations are now largely automated, and are usually part of the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) or Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS). The hourly normals include temperature, dew point, heat index, wind chill, wind, cloudiness, heating and cooling degree hours, pressure normals, and other statistics of these variables. Users can access the data either by product or by station. All data utilized in the computation of the 2006-2020 Climate Normals were taken from the Integrated Surface Dataset (ISD) Lite (a subset of NCEI's Integrated Surface Dataset). These source datasets (including intermediate datasets used in the computation of products) are also archived at the NOAA NCEI.

As global emissions and temperatures continue to rise, global climate models offer projections as to how the climate will change in years to come. These model projections can be used for a variety of end-uses to better understand how current systems will be affected by the changing climate. While climate models predict every individual year, using a single year may not be representative as there may be outlier years. It can also be useful to represent a multi-year period with a single year of data. Both items are currently addressed when working with past weather data by a using Typical Meteorological Year (TMY)methodology. This methodology works by statistically selecting representative months from a number of years and appending these months to achieve a single representative year for a given period. In this analysis, the TMY methodology is used to develop Future Typical Meteorological Year (fTMY) using climate model projections. The resulting set of fTMY data is then formatted into EnergyPlus weather (epw) fi les that can be used for building simulation to estimate the impact of climate scenarios on the built environment.

This dataset contains fTMY files for 3281 US Counties in the continental United States. The data for each county is derived from six different global climate models (GCMs) from the 6th Phase of Coupled Models Intercomparison Project CMIP6-ACCESSCM2, BCC-CSM2-MR, CNRM-ESM2-1, MPI-ESM1-2-HR, MRI-ESM2-0, NorESM2-MM. The six climate models were statistically downscaled for 1980–2014 in the historical period and 2015–2100 in the future period under the SSP585 scenario using the methodology described in Rastogi et al. (2022). Additionally, hourly data was derived from the daily downscaled output using the Mountain Microclimate Simulation Model (MTCLIM; Thornton and Running, 1999). The shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) used for this analysis was SSP 5 and the representative concentration pathway (RCP) used was RCP 8.5. More information about SSP and RCP can be referred to O'Neill et al. (2020).

More information about the six selected CMIP6 GCMs:

ACCESS-CM2 -
http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/ES19040
BCC-CSM2-MR -
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-2977-2021
CNRM-ESM2-1-
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001791
MPI-ESM1-2-HR -
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3241-2019
MRI-ESM2-0 -
https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2019-051
NorESM2-MM -
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6165-2020

Additional references:
O'Neill, B. C., Carter, T. R., Ebi, K. et al. (2020). Achievements and Needs for the Climate Change Scenario Framework.
Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 1074–1084 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00952-0
Rastogi, D., Kao, S.-C., and Ashfaq, M. (2022). How May the Choice of Downscaling Techniques and Meteorological Reference Observations Affect Future Hydroclimate Projections? Earth's Future, 10, e2022EF002734. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002734
Thornton, P. E. and Running, S. W. (1999). An Improved Algorithm for Estimating Incident Daily Solar Radiation from Measurements of Temperature, Humidity and Precipitation, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 93, 211-228.

Shovan Chowdhury, Fengqi Li, Avery Stubbings, Joshua R. New, Deeksha Rastogi, and Shih-Chieh Kao (2023). "Future Typical Meteorological Year (fTMY) US Weather Files for Building Simulation for every US County (West and Midwest)." ORNL internal Scientific and Technical Information (STI) report, doi:10.5281/zenodo.8338549, Sept 2023. [Data]

Shovan Chowdhury, Fengqi Li, Avery Stubbings, Joshua R. New, Deeksha Rastogi, and Shih-Chieh Kao (2023). "Future Typical Meteorological Year (fTMY) US Weather Files for Building Simulation for every US County (East and South)." ORNL internal Scientific and Technical Information (STI) report, doi:10.5281/zenodo.8335815, Sept 2023. [Data]

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