Extreme meteorological parameters during Space Shuttle pad exposure periods

During the 113 missions of the Space Transportation System (STS), the Space Shuttle fleet has been exposed to the elements on the launch pad for a total of 4195 days. This paper provides a summary of the historical record of the meteorological extremes encountered by the Space Shuttle fleet during the pad exposure period. Parameters included are temperature, dew point, relative humidity, wind speed, sea level pressure and precipitation. All the data presented is archived by the Marshall Space Flight Center Environments Group, and was obtained from a combination of surface observations and meteorological towers at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Data is provided from the first launch of the STS in 1981 through the launch of STS-107 in 2003.