NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) maintain the surface and upper air observing systems, manage the Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) network, and provide preliminary daily climate data to the public. All data collected through observation networks are transmitted to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), where they are quality-controlled, archived, and disseminated as final certifiable data to users in a variety of formats.
A selection of climatological data may be found for more than 260 stations across the U.S. by accessing the NWS Web page and clicking on the “climate” tab. Information including daily and monthly climate summaries as well as extreme reports are available on all local office’s climate websites.
A broad array of the most popular climate data products for individual stations is available through the NOWData program, accessible through the local office’s climate website. NOWData provides access to climate observations and statistics (normals and extremes) for a variety of weather elements, including temperature, precipitation, snow, and degree days over a range of time periods.
The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) performs extensive real-time monitoring of climate variability on seasonal to interannual time scales. It also has a coordinated program to monitor, assess, and predict climate phenomena and their linkage to weather events. Important oceanic and atmospheric phenomena that affect our weather are:
The NWS provides National and Local Climate outlook products ranging from the 6-10 Day to the 3-month outlooks. The seasonal temperature outlooks are downscaled to the local station level and made available on each local office’s climate webpages through a joint effort between NWS CPC and the WFOs. CPC is the primary provider of NWS National Climate Outlooks. The suite of NWS climate outlook products includes:
|
 |
NWS field offices are increasingly providing climate-related decision support services to customers requiring this longer-term information for their decision making. To ensure the relevance of NWS climate products and services, the Climate Services Branch (CSB) supports activities designed to identify NWS climate customers and their needs. Efforts to identify NWS climate user requirements and satisfaction include:
