http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ushcn_map_interface.html

Choose your state and site. Select “Get Daily Data” in the pop up box on the map. Click on “Create a download file”. Select the temperature entries on the next page and click submit. That will give a file name to download. It will be in comma separated value (CSV) format.

I recently paid $70 to the National Climatic Data Center for a 1.5 MB file, with the 1925 to 2005 ACTUAL temperature data for Chaska MN.

I’m doing some statistical analysis, and using Chaska as the “control point” and “comparison” to the MSP data. (Which I have FOR FREE, courtesy of the local weatherman who went to the microfilms and retrieved the data going back to 1820, Fort Snelling, MN records..)

What is the BURN about? Can I say this without getting profane, demeaning, overly agitated? WHY THE HECK DO I HAVE TO PAY FOR WHAT MY GREAT GRAND PARENTS, GRAND PARENTS, PARENTS and MYSELF HAVE BEEN PAYING FOR ALL ALONG.

The concept that the NCDC needs $ for these files is BOGUS. These SLUGS are getting $2 Billion a year for PRODUCING VIRTUALLY NOTHING OF MERIT for our society.

I’ve figured it would be about $100,000 to get ALL THE DATA. AND, all the data would fit on an 8GB THUMB DRIVE.

I WANT ALL THE DATA AND I WANT IT FOR FREE?

Steve, anyone, CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT FRIENDS?

I don’t want “free” monthly averages. I WANT ALL THE DATA POINTS, period.

ANYONE WANT TO TILT AT SOME WINDMILLS WITH ME?

Max in Minnetonka

I’ve updated now to 64-bit 7-Zip version 9.20, and the problem is still there. I tried to include an image in the previous comment to show the file sizes displayed by WinRAR, and the actual sizes extracted. I’ll try again here:

and the preview does show it, but in case it does not show when posted, here are the sizes:

flags.txt 662,530,238 displayed in WinRAR, 13,229,915 KB extracted by WinRAR
sources.txt 3,338,241,649 displayed in WinRAR, 7,454,306 KB extracted by WinRAR

I find these file sizes, which seem due to the “convenience” of each row in these flag and sources files having the same number of columns. As any individual data value will only have a limited numbers of flags and sources associated with it, adding flags and sources as two additional tab delimited entries to each row in data.txt, with the individual flags and sources separated by spaces, should combine data.txt, flags.txt and sources.txt in one file of a more reasonable size, as:

Station ID	 Series Number	 Date	 Temperature (C)	 Uncertainty (C)	 Observations	 Time of Observation	 Source list ...	 Flag list ...
110606	1	2004.625	18.441	0	29	-99	4	65 130 133 151 153
110606	1	2004.708	19.601	0	-99	-99	4	65 130 133 137 151 153
110606	1	2004.792	18.059	0	31	-99	4	65 133 151 153
...

If such a combined file would be of use to others, reply to this comment, and if there are any such replies I’ll make the file available in a dropbox once I have it ready, and post another comment here with instructions.

I ask this because I have encountered CRC failures for these two files when I extracted them using 7-Zip, and while the extracted file lengths (flags.txt: 662,530,238 and sources.txt: 3,338,241,649) match those shown by 7-Zip, the last data record in flags.txt is for Station ID 112552, and in sources.txt for 129842, both well short of the total number of station records, thus suggesting that the files should be larger still. All other files extract without error and with all station records present.

I have downloaded the zip file a second time, with the same CRC failures showing, and extracted the files in R, which does not indicate an error, but extracts files which have the same lengths as those extracted by 7-Zip. Can anyone confirm that they have extracted these two files successfully? It would help to know whether I am wasting my time if I try downloading again.

Steve: I tried to read them into R but my computer wasn’t big enough.