Increasing the Utilization of Weather Data for Safety Applications and Traveler Information

Historical Data

Hourly Historical Observations

Hourly historical observations are available for 238 Integrated Surface Database (ISD) locations in and near North Carolina for the period 0000 UTC 1 January 1979 through 2300 UTC 1 January 2015. Quality-controlled data files are named using a combination of the 5-digit WBAN and 6-digit USAF station numbers (e.g., 03812_723150qc.dat for Asheville, NC). The following files are available:

Individual Files

• Station names, WBAN/USAF numbers, descriptions, and geographic coordinates
• Column headers, variable descriptions, units, and missing data flags
• Present weather codes
• Hourly data files (9.9 Gb, tarred and gzipped to 492 Mb)

One Large File

The station names and present weather codes given above apply here as well. Please review the new column headers provided below.

• Column headers, variable descriptions, units, and missing data flags
• Single file of hourly data (14 Gb, gzipped to 511 Mb)

North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR)

NARR data are available every three hours. The files given here span the period 0000 UTC 1 January 1979 through 0000 UTC 1 January 2015 and have been filled with missing values at non-native NARR times in order to allow for easy comparison with hourly historical observations. Files are named according to the geographic coordinates of each grid point. The following files are available:

Individual Files

• Column headers, variable descriptions, and units
• Additional notes on the data files
• Geographic coordinates and elevation for each grid point
• NARR data files (49 Gb, tarred and gzipped to 5.4 Gb)

One Large File

The supplemental files given above apply here as well. Please review the new column headers provided below.

• Column headers, variable descriptions, and units
• NARR data files (54 Gb, gzipped to 5.4 Gb)