United States Weather Data Sources
About the Data
United States climate data on this website were compiled from the US National Climatic Data Center weather station records referenced below. Annual and monthly averages are for the years 1971 to 2000. Most other weather data cover records up to the end of 2006.
Major cities included in the weather rankings are 38 of the USA's 40 urban areas with the largest populations. These are all the cities in the United States with over 440,000 people on July 1, 2006, according to the US Census Bureau's estimates.
Two of the top 40 cities, Mesa in Arizona and San Jose in California were left out of the data compilation because their comparative data are unavailable from the sources. The two cities sit close to other large centers for which there are weather data: Mesa is near Phoenix, and San Jose is near San Francisco. As well, the same weather station serves both Fort Worth and Dallas. For one other city, Long Beach, no records are available for percent sunshine.
The large US cities included for the weather rankings, in order of population size, are: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Detroit, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Fort Worth, Baltimore, Charlotte, El Paso, Boston, Seattle, Washington, Milwaukee, Denver, Louisville/Jefferson, Las Vegas, Nashville-Davidson, Oklahoma City, Portland, Tucson, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Long Beach, Fresno, Sacramento, Kansas City and Cleveland.
Seasonal normal daily mean, maximum and minimum temperatures were developed by averaging the season's three monthly values for these measures. Summer data are the average of June, July and August measures. Winter data are the average of December, January and February figures.
Data Sources
Guy King. 2007. The Hottest and Coldest Places in the Conterminous United States. Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. 69: 101-114.
J.L.H. Paulhus. 1953. Record Snowfall of April 14-15, 1921, at Silver Lake, Colorado. Monthly Weather Review. Feb 1953: 38-40. Web Page
Met Office. 2007. Fact Sheet No. 9 – Weather Extremes. UK Met Office, National Meteorological Library and Archive. Web Page
US Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, (NESDIS), National Climatic Data Center. Comparative Climatic Data for the United States through 2006. Web Page
US Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, (NESDIS), National Climatic Data Center. Monthly State Maximum/Minimum Extremes - 05/01/04. Web Page
US Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, (NESDIS), National Climatic Data Center. National Climate Extremes Committee. Existing Records. Web Page
US Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, (NESDIS), National Climatic Data Center. Record Highest Temperatures By State (Thru December 2003). Web Page
US Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, (NESDIS), National Climatic Data Center. Record Lowest Temperatures By State (Thru December 2003). Web Page
US Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, (NESDIS), National Climatic Data Center. United States Snow Climatology. Web Page
