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Surface Airways Observations (SAO) Hourly Data (1965-1981) (CDMP)

Published by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce | Catalog Last Checked: April 12, 2026 at 09:20 PM | Dataset Last Updated: March 09, 2006 at 12:00 AM
The dataset consists primarily of U.S. surface airways observations (SAO) data beginning in 1965 and extending through 1981. Note that a few stations have already had certain years within this 1965-81 period re-keyed as hourly. For these stations, only a subset of the period was keyed. In addition, other stations did not have data keyed at all during this period, or during the periods immediately before or after the 1965-81 range. These stations data have been keyed to as thoroughly as possible complete their entire period of record back to July, 1948. The major data variables are as follows: WBAN Identification Station Number, observational type, ceiling and cloud, visibility, present weather, temperature, relative humidity, wind, pressure and precipitation. The observations are generally recorded for the 24 hour period midnight to midnight. The keying format was designed to reflect the data as entered on the page to make keying easier for the key entry personnel, who were not trained meteorological technicians. The "raw" observations which comprise this dataset will be quality checked to include data adjustments and converted to NCDC's Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) format.

Resources

7 resources available

  • NCEI Dataset Landing Page

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  • NCEI Customer Support

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  • Data Documentation for Data Set: 3853 (DSI-3853) Surface Airways Observations (CDMP)

    PDF
  • Integrated Surface Database (ISD)

    TEXT/HTML
  • Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Keywords

    TEXT/HTML
  • CDMP web page

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  • NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

    TEXT/HTML

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