SUNY Climate Data Online Search Worksheet

You will not receive credit if you post/select a county that has already been claimed by a classmate.

We are going to start our journey by obtaining a data set from the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. Links will open in a new window. Please read all instructions below, then create your initial post with file attached before responding to your classmates’ posts.

• Visit the NOAA National Climatic Data Center online search page at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/search.
• Select the “daily summaries” weather observation type/dataset.
• Select the date range January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2018. There are drop down menus to select the year and month. To select the day click on that day on the calendar found below the year and month.
• Select the “Search for” criteria “counties”.
• Enter the county you live in for the “Enter a Search Term” option.
• Click the blue Search button.
• A map will come up showing your county. On the left side of this page click the orange Add to Cart button.
• On the upper right side of this page click on the orange Add to Cart (Free Data) button.
• Select the output format as the CSV file type. This file type, once you get the file, can then be saved in an Excel format.
• Click the orange Continue button on the bottom of this page.
• On the Custom Options: Daily Summaries page, go to “Select data types for custom output”. Click the “+” to expand the Precipitation option. Select PRCP and SNOW.
• Click the orange Continue button on the bottom of the page.
• Enter your email address (twice) on this page.
• Click on the orange Submit Order button.
• You will receive an email in the near future to access and download the requested data.
• Watch for this email (and check your spam folders). Once you get the email, save the data to your own computer in an Excel file format (.xls or .xlsx). You may have to use the Save As feature to do this. Make sure to save this Excel file somewhere you can find it again. You will be working with this data set for several modules.

Time to check out the file and the data that is in it!

Create a single post addressing all of the questions below (using complete and descriptive sentences). Attach your Excel data file (*.xls or *.xlsx) to your discussion post. The Excel file will include not only the data, but also the use of commands (such as MAX and COUNTIF) and clearly labeled results.

How many weather stations are in your county? How many pieces of data are in your file (how many lines of data, not counting the header/titles on the first row)? Look at the start and end dates of the data for some of the weather stations. Do they include data for the full time period you requested? If not, are only a couple days missing or are entire years worth of data missing? Why might data be missing?

Look at the PRCP and SNOW columns. What are the units for PRCP and for SNOW? Use the MAX command in Excel to find the largest PRCP and largest SNOW values in your data set. Visit the top of page 5 in the GHCND Documentation page, which explains what the data in these columns is representing. What does a data entry of 9999 mean?

What is the largest one day rainfall total for your county in this time period, when did it occur, and at which weather station was that reading made? What is the largest one day snowfall total for your county in this time period, when did it occur, and at which weather station was that reading made?

Use the COUNTIF command in Excel to find how many days had rainfall totals above 3″. Use the COUNTIF command in Excel to find how many days had snowfall totals above 6″.

In addition to your main post, you are to respond to at least two other students’ main posts. Substantive responses to other students’ main posts might include the following: (1) a detailed comparison of your results to their results including proposing why the results might (or might not) differ between your two regions, or (2) detailed and polite recommendations for improvements should their work be incorrect or not fully meet the assignment’s requirements.

i will post the countries that have been used so you can choose one that has not