We would greatly appreciate feedback on this webpage's use, particularly in the classroom, for presentations or for research. Please email Cathy Smith.
Climate Division Plots
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How to read file used in plot.
How to reference plots
RSS: Dataset updates RSS (Info)
Climate Division Information
NCDC's Climate Division Webpage. Includes references and related docuentation.
Data caveats,
Get climate division boundaries.
Get stations that went into division data (from NCDC's ftp server).
Divisional Areas and other useful files from NCDC.
US Map with list of map climate divisions and individual state maps of the climate divisions (with counties).
Get State averaged temperature and precipitation climatologies.
Related Pages
Atmospheric and Ocean Time series (SOI, PNA, etc.).
Get timeseries from climate division dataset and other datasets.
Plot maps and time series at one climate division (from NCDC). Choose "map interface to selected online data". Under select products, choose "divisional data".
 

US Climate Division Dataset Mapping Page: Data Notes

Stations go into and out of the resord and all of it is QC'd at NCDC. See their webpage and ftp site for more information about the stations and about the QC process.

  1. Precipitation STD for 1981-2010 was scaled incorrectly. (Old) Values should be increased by 1.9X. Corrected Values are now available (Jun 2012).

Caveats

  1. Data is subject to change at a later date (often 6 months later) though in practice, most values don't change.
  2. Data from 1935 and before is created by taking the state average and adjusting it for each division.
  3. PDSI values are calculated at NCDC for each division based on the temperature and precipitation. The PDSI is not linear so averaging different months is not the same thing as getting the PDSI from average temperature and precipitation.
  4. Stations go into and out of the averages depending on many factors. NCDC has the stations that went into averages in their ftp site. See NCDC for more information on data QC.
This is a Research and Development Application