The Surface and Solar Radiation Airways Hourly Databases on CD-ROM, along with

WBAN-10 Manuscript Form Data

BRIEF

The NCDC Surface Airways Hourly (TD-3280) data set consists of Level II data and contains the following elements: wind speed and direction; cloud ceiling height; horizontal visibility; total and opaque sky cover; altimeter setting; station and sea level pressure; dry bulb, wet bulb, and dew point temperature; relative humidity; global and direct radiation; and the present weather for the U.S., Caribbean, Pacific Islands and other overseas stations of the National Weather Service (NWS) , U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force. The sources for the data elements are Original Manuscript, SRRS (Service Record Retention System), AFOS (Automated Field Operations and Services), DATSAV (Global Data Save from U.S. Air Force), NMC (National Meteorological Center), Foreign Keyed, MAPSO (Microcomputer Aided Paperless Surface Observations), and SRRS Manuscript. The pre-1984 data were reported as 'Original Manuscript'. Hourly data were digitized from the beginning of record through December 1964, and from August 1981 to the present. For January 1965 through July 1981, the stations 3-hourly data were routinely digitized, although most stations from 1972-1981 have some hourly data digitized.

The data set consists of hourly and 3-hourly recordings taken at airport locations by the NWS, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), or military observers. Manuscript Forms (WBAN-10) contain more observations and information than the digital TD-3280 files. The period of record is valid for major sites while the period of record at other sites may vary and a few sites have data prior to 1949 in digital files. Approximately 350 stations currently are processing to digital files. Manuscript records often begin in the 1930's. Currently, manuscript forms are received from about 1200 NWS/FAA stations. Data are also published monthly as 'Local Climatological Data'. Data consists of 562 reels CCT at 6250 bpi and the bytes per record is variable.

The NCDC Airways Solar Radiation (TD-3281) database contains the hourly global (GRAD) and the direct (DRAD) solar elements along with the collateral data for 30 NWS stations and the solar elements for the Solar Radiation Facility in Boulder, Colorado, extracted from the TD-3280 database. This is performed on an annual basis to service user requests.

The EarthInfo Inc. NCDC Surface Airways CD-ROM dataset resides on 12 regional discs representing the TD-3280 and TD-3281 files. Over 300 first order stations containing hourly surface weather data for the U.S. are included on the 12 discs. The discs are updated annually and indexed by state, station name, and station ID. Hourly and daily averages, precalculated summary statistics, and present weather information are available for each station. Options for exports include ASCII (also print), Lotus, NCDC, dbase, and binary formats. The costs range from a year-to-year rental at $595/disc; annual updates at $395/disc; to the one-time purchase at $1195/disc.

ATTRIBUTES

Entry_ID: FA00770_355_AIRWAYS (MD Identifier: 4874)
 
Temporal Coverage:
     From: 1930-01-01                 TO:  
 
Geographic Coverage:
     Southwest Extent: 90S,180W    Northeast Extent:  90N,180E
 
Source:
     GROUND STATIONS>Fixed Weather Stations
 
Storage Media:
     CD-ROM
     Magnetic Tape
     Manuscript
     Microfiche
 
Discipline, Subdiscipline:
     EARTH SCIENCE                   > ATMOSPHERE
     EARTH SCIENCE                   > OCEAN
 
Location Keyword:
     GLOBAL
 
Parameter Group, Parameter:
     ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION         > CLOUDS
     ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION         > HUMIDITY
     ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS            > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE
     ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS            > CLOUD TYPES
     ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS            > HUMIDITY
     ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS            > PRESSURE
     ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS            > SOLAR RADIATION
     ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS            > VISIBILITY
     ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS            > WINDS
     OCEAN DYNAMICS                  > PRESSURE
 
General Keywords:
     AEDD
     CD-ROM
     CLIMATOLOGY
     CLOUD CEILING
     DEW POINT
     DIGITAL DATA
     DIRECT RADIATION
     DOD
     DRY BULB
     GLOBAL RADIATION
     HORIZONTAL VISIBILITY
     HOURLY DATA
     IDN_NODE GSFC/NCDS
     NAVY
     RADIATION
     RELATIVE HUMIDITY
     SKY COVER
     STATISTICS
     SURFACE
     TD-3280
     TD-3281
     USAF
     WBAN-10
     WEATHER
     WET BULB
 
Revision Date: 1994-03-01
 
Quality Statement:
 

The quality of these hourly databases are considered quite good. All
observations have been subject to some form of quality control. During the
earlier years this was almost entirely a manual effort. As more sophisticated
techniques of processing were introduced, the quality control procedures were
also improved. Today, the quality control effort is a blend of several computer
programs and manual review. Observations are checked for conformance to
established observing and coding practices, for internal consistency, for
serial, or time oriented consistency, and against defined limits for various
meteorological parameters.

DATACENTER

Archive: 
   EII>EarthInfo Inc.
   Data Set ID: SURFACE AIRWAYS CD-ROM 
 
   Contact: THORWALD, FRANK 
            EarthInfo Inc.
            5541 Central Avenue
            Boulder, CO 80301
            USA
 
            Phone: (303) 938-1788
                   (303) 938-8183 FAX
 
Archive: 
   NCDS>NASA Climate Data System
   Data Set ID: AIRWAYS 
 
   Contact: OLSEN, LOLA 
            GSFC Distributed Active Archive Center
            NASA/GSFC
            Code 902.2
            Greenbelt, MD 20771
            USA
 
            Electronic Mail: INTERNET> OLSEN@NSSDCA.GSFC.NASA.GOV
                             NSI/DECNET> NCF::OLSEN
 
            Phone: (301) 286-9760
                   FTS 888-9760
 
Archive: 
   NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC>National Climatic Data Center, NOAA
   Data Set ID: TD-3280 
                TD-3281 
                WBAN-10 
 
   Contact: ROSS, THOMAS 
            NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC
            Federal Building
            37 Battery Park Avenue
            Asheville, NC 28801-2733
            USA
 
            Electronic Mail: INTERNET> TROSS@NCDC.NOAA.GOV
 
            Phone: (704) 271-4994

PERSONNEL

Entry Author: SCIALDONE, JOHN N.
              Hughes STX
              7701 Greenbelt Road, Suite 400
              Greenbelt, MD  20770
              USA
 
              Electronic Mail: INTERNET> SCIALDONE@NSSDCA.GSFC.NASA.GOV
                               NSI/DECnet> NCF::SCIALDONE
 
              Phone: (301) 441-4214
 
 
Information in this entry provided by NCDS

REFERENCE


NASA Climate Data System Detailed Catalog Entry

NOAA Product Information Catalog, 1988, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Washington DC,
171 pp.

Selected Guide to Climatic Data Sources, 1988, U.S. Dept. of Commerce,
Washington DC.

SUP_MENU

   1. Data Center: NCDS>NASA Climate Data System