Iowa Environmental Mesonet

Iowa State University Department of Agronomy

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IEM "Climodat" Reports

These "Climodat" reports provide some answers to the most common climatological questions we get routinely asked. These reports are based on the daily climate observations from the NWS COOP network. We also provide "kitchen sink" data files which contain the much of the raw information used to generate the reports.

Note on data sources:
The Iowa State Climatologist provides the IEM with a monthly update of quality controlled observational data. This procedure takes a good deal of time on his behalf. Quality controlled information exists from 1 Jan 1951 till 01 Aug 2009. Any months of data afterwards are based on preliminary data from NCDC and other sources. Some sites have data back to 1893, so their reports contain data dating back to then.

Climodat Reports

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"Kitchen Sink" Datafiles
While the climodat reports are useful, they only provide information for one variable and one site at a time. These "kitchen sink" datafiles contain the raw information broken down by year and month for variables like high/low temperature and precipitation.

Download:
You can download all of the datafiles in one Zipfile (0.8 MB) or browse a directory to pick the individual files you want.

Format:
These text files are in a simple comma delimited format. Two of the data columns contain the latitude and longitude information which allows easy import into most GIS systems.

Details: yearly file
There is one yearly file (named yearly.csv) which contains yearly summaries dating back to 1951. Please consult the help file (named yearly_ks.txt) for further details.

Details: monthly files
For every year dating back to 1951, there is one file per year which contains monthly summaries of high/low temperature and precipitation. You can browse this directory to pick the files you want or just download everything to save the hassle. Please consult the help file (named monthly_ks.txt) for further details.

Did these reports help? Please let us know if you would like to see other variables in these files or have any other comments about them. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: While we use care to provide accurate weather/climatic information, errors may occur because of equipment or other failure. We therefore provide this information without any warranty of accuracy. Users of this weather/climate data do so at their own risk, and are advised to use independent judgement as to whether to verify the data presented.