A blog by the nation’s official climate record keepers.
Many networks across the U.S. collect air temperature and precipitation observations we use to characterize these events. But only NCEI's U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) was designed with lab-calibrated sensors--in triplicate--to ensure a high-quality, continuous record of U.S. climate.
NCEI's Anthony Arguez uses a new dataset for tracking hot and cold extremes to provide a preliminary analysis of the Arctic blast that hit the Midwest and other parts of the eastern United States in late January 2019.
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) tracks U.S. weather and climate events that have great economic and societal impacts. Since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 241 weather and climate disasters where the overall damage costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index, as of January 2019). The cumulative cost for these 241 events exceeds $1.6 trillion.
If the recent weather whiplash has left you wondering how U.S. winters are changing over time, NOAA climate maps tell the story.
Tree rings can reveal the age of wood used to make human artifacts from famous violins to the cliff ruins of Mesa Verde, and also tell us about the climate conditions that prevailed when those trees were alive.
Climatologists don’t make house calls, but they do provide answers about why keeping track of Earth’s vitals is so important. Here’s a quick Q&A.
We live in a warming world. And we often characterize that warming through metrics of temperature. But that’s only a sliver of the story. Another sliver, and perhaps a more consequential one, is Big Rain.
The climate system we share is big and complex. Assessments like the State of the Climate depend on expertise from around the world and around the sciences. This year's "Meet the Author" profile features two contributors to the African section of the "Regional Climates" chapter.
There’s a hidden story in May’s climate data. Picking it out is like night and day. No, literally, night and day.
The U.S. climate record begins 125 years ago. Where do the data come from, and who had the foresight to begin collecting and preserving observations so many years ago?