High Resolution Daily Temperature and Precipitation Data for the Northeast

This gateway provides access to high-resolution climate data for the Northeastern United States. This data was developed by the Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) and are updated daily. The database that houses this data and the Web Services that provide access to this data are hosted by the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) and funded through the Computational Agriculture Initiative. The data are accessible as an XML stream via Web Services described below.

You can choose from one of three weather variables:

Daily Minimum Temperature
• Units: degrees Centigrade
• Date Range: 7/2/2004--yesterday
Daily Maximum Temperature
• Units: degrees Centigrade
• Date Range: 7/2/2004--yesterday
Daily Total Precipitation
• Units: millimeters
• Date Range: 7/2/2004--2 days ago

This data is available for the Northeastern United States bounded by latitudes 48° 00' N and 36° 00' N and longitudes 66° 04' W and 84° 00' W. The temperature data is at 5 km resolution and the precipitation data is at 4 km resolution.

There are two Web Services currently available:

• GetDEMOneLocation--request data for one spatial location for one or more days
• GetDemData--request data for an area defined by a latitude/longitude box for one or more days

The URL for these Web Services is http://compag.tc.cornell.edu/NRCC/service1.asmx. Sample code for consuming these Web Services can be found at Code Examples. There is a wealth of material about Web Services on the web, both creating and consuming them.

GetDEMOneLocation--request data for one spatial location for one or more days

This Web Service takes five parameters, all strings:

weatherStartDate	mm/dd/yyyy
weatherEndDate	mm/dd/yyyy one day beyond last date wanted
weatherVariable	mint, maxt or prec; capitalization matters
latitude	number between 36.00 and 48.00
longitude	number between -84.00 and -66.04

It returns an XML string with two parts, separated by commas; each day is separated by a "|".

The parts are:

date

value

Example 1: Get maximum temperature for Ithaca, NY for 7/4/2007

GetDEMOneLocation ("7/4/2007", "7/5/2007", "maxt", "42.45", "-76.45")

returns:

7/4/2007,25.45|

Example 2: Get precipitation for Binghampton, NY for 6/25/2006 through 6/29/2006. Note: there was major flooding in Central NY on 6/28/2007.

GetDEMOneLocation("6/25/2006", "6/30/2006", "prec", "42.06", "-75.55")

returns:

6/25/2006,1.56|6/26/2006,22.08|6/27/2006,41.35|6/28/2006,118.03|6/29/2006,3.88|

GetDEMData--request data for an area defined by a latitude/longitude box for one or more days

This Web Service takes seven parameters, all strings:

weatherStartDate	mm/dd/yyyy
weatherEndDate	mm/dd/yyyy one day beyond last date wanted
weatherVariable	mint, maxt or prec; capitalization matters
maximum latitude	number between 36.00 and 48.00
minimum latitude	number between 36.00 and 48.00
maximum longitude	number between -84.00 and -66.04
minimum longitude	number between -84.00 and -66.04

It returns an XML string with four parts, separated by commas; each day/location is separated by a "|".

The parts are:

date

latitude

longitude

value

Example 1: Get maximum temperature for area around Ithaca, NY for 7/4/2007

GetDEMData("7/4/2006", "7/5/2006", "maxt", "42.50", "42.40", "-76.40", "-76.50")

returns:


7/4/2006,42.50,-76.50,29.35|7/4/2006,42.50,-76.46,28.35|
7/4/2006,42.50,-76.42,28.65|7/4/2006,42.46,-76.50,30.45|
7/4/2006,42.46,-76.46,28.65|7/4/2006,42.46,-76.42,27.75|
7/4/2006,42.42,-76.50,29.05|7/4/2006,42.42,-76.46,29.25|
7/4/2006,42.42,-76.42,28.05|

Example 2: Get precipitation for area around Binghampton, NY for 6/25/2006 through 6/29/2006. Note: there was major flooding in Central NY on 6/28/2007.

GetDEMData("6/25/2006", "6/30/2006", "prec", "42.10", "42.00", "-75.50", "-75.60")

returns:


6/25/2006,42.0282,-75.5830,1.60|6/26/2006,42.0282,-75.5830,20.22|
6/27/2006,42.0282,-75.5830,38.43|6/28/2006,42.0282,-75.5830,122.81|
6/29/2006,42.0282,-75.5830,3.36|6/25/2006,42.0093,-75.5381,1.50|
6/26/2006,42.0093,-75.5381,22.17|6/27/2006,42.0093,-75.5381,38.39|
6/28/2006,42.0093,-75.5381,103.78|6/29/2006,42.0093,-75.5381,3.54|
6/25/2006,42.0615,-75.5577,1.56|6/26/2006,42.0615,-75.5577,22.08|
6/27/2006,42.0615,-75.5577,41.35|6/28/2006,42.0615,-75.5577,118.03|
6/29/2006,42.0615,-75.5577,3.88|6/25/2006,42.0427,-75.5127,1.43|
6/26/2006,42.0427,-75.5127,26.01|6/27/2006,42.0427,-75.5127,37.73|
6/28/2006,42.0427,-75.5127,98.67|6/29/2006,42.0427,-75.5127,4.06|
6/25/2006,42.0949,-75.5323,1.58|6/26/2006,42.0949,-75.5323,25.07|
6/27/2006,42.0949,-75.5323,40.22|6/28/2006,42.0949,-75.5323,113.49|
6/29/2006,42.0949,-75.5323,4.09|