Introduction

Quick access to U.S. monthly precipitation data for all cooperative and NWS stations 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. Please read the notes at the bottom. Data are in hundredths of inches.

Available Files

* All Data, All States (70848000 bytes)
* All Data, All States, zipped file (17449539 bytes)
* All States, 1996 Data (998000 bytes)
* All States, 1995 Data (999875 bytes)
* All States, 1994 Data (985000 bytes)
* Station List with longitude & latitude (5669058 bytes)
* Stations Outside U.S. (Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.) (1099125 bytes)
Alabama (1274250 bytes)
Alaska (1145000 bytes)
Arizona (1668750 bytes)
Arkansas (1305250 bytes)
California (4354250 bytes)
Colorado (1641750 bytes)
Connecticut (414375 bytes)
Delaware (79125 bytes)
Florida (991125 bytes)
Georgia (1194000 bytes)
Hawaii (2496875 bytes)
Idaho (1210250 bytes)
Illinois (1429250 bytes)
Indiana (1203750 bytes)
Iowa (1333875 bytes)
Kansas (2153375 bytes)
Kentucky (1160250 bytes)
Louisiana (1132625 bytes)
Maine (463875 bytes)
Maryland (632875 bytes)
Massachusetts (750375 bytes)
Michigan (1301875 bytes)
Minnesota (1322750 bytes)
Mississippi (1369625 bytes)
Missouri (1616125 bytes)
Montana (2246625 bytes)
Nebraska (1914125 bytes)
Nevada (728000 bytes)
New Hampshire (437125 bytes)
New Jersey (541125 bytes)
New Mexico (1896125 bytes)
New York (2103000 bytes)
North Carolina (1427875 bytes)
North Dakota (1277125 bytes)
Ohio (1410500 bytes)
Oklahoma (1851875 bytes)
Oregon (1973500 bytes)
Pennsylvania (1859750 bytes)
Rhode Island (45000 bytes)
South Carolina (832750 bytes)
South Dakota (1254875 bytes)
Tennessee (1224875 bytes)
Texas (4868250 bytes)
Utah (1344750 bytes)
Vermont (372250 bytes)
Virginia (1199125 bytes)
Washington (1774625 bytes)
West Virginia (992750 bytes)
Wisconsin (1357625 bytes)
Wyoming (1175875 bytes)

Anonymous FTP Instructions

a) Enter: open ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov
b) Login is: ftp or anonymous
c) Password is: your email address
d) You are now logged onto a UNIX workstation. Enter help if you'd like a list of available commands.
e) To move to the correct subdirectory, enter: cd /pub/data/coop-precip
f) 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:
g) Then, to get a copy of any of the data files, use the same procedure, such as--get coop.txt c:coop.txt
h) To logoff the system when finished, enter: bye

Notes

The directory '/pub/data/coop-precip' contains historical monthly precipitation data for all U.S. cooperative and National Weather Service stations. The periods of record vary by station, with some stations having data back to about 1900, although many begin around the 1948 time frame. The data files are complete through 1996. The directory has a data file for each state (e.g., 'alabama.txt'), along with one file for several stations outside the U.S. such as Guam and Puerto Rico (filename 'others.txt'). There are currently over 8000 NWS and cooperative weather stations active and included in this directory, with many more currently inactive stations also included.

The files consist entirely of ASCII character data. A header record begins each file with the station number, station name, state abbreviation, year, 12 months (Jan - Dec), and 'annual' appearing from left to right. The monthly and annual precipitation amounts are in inches and hundredths (e.g., 1122 = 11.22 inches, 522 = 5.22 inches, 55 = .55 inches). A value of '9999' indicates missing or incomplete data for that month, with '99999' indicating missing for the yearly total. The monthly total is only presented when all data were available and validated for that month. Likewise, the annual total is only presented when every monthly total for the year was available. These data are taken from NCDC digital database TD3220, which also contains additional elements such as temperature and snowfall. These additional elements are available off line on tape or diskette.

Known data problem: precipitation is known to actually be in units of millimeters (rather than hundredths of inches) for several stations outside the U.S. mainland. We believe that this problem is confined to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands during the early 1960s.

If you have any technical questions about these data, please contact:

Neal Lott: Ph. 704-271-4995 ext 182; email nlott@ncdc.noaa.gov or
 Tom Ross: Ph. 704-271-4994 ext 181; email tross@ncdc.noaa.gov or
   Fax: 704-271-4876

To order additional data, send a message to orders@ncdc.noaa.gov or call 704-271-4800. We'll be glad to assist in any way.

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