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New Online Resources for the Historian of Meteorology
Doria B. Grimes, NOAA Central Library, Silver Spring, MD
July 2004 was a milestone. During this month over 250,000 users accessed the historical meteorological data and text files available online from the NOAA Central Library. These web sites are: 1) Monthly Weather Review from the beginning (1872) to 1973, 2) U.S. Daily Weather Maps from 1871 to the present and 3) historical foreign climate data from 51 countries and colonies.
Complimentary access to the historical issues of The Monthly Weather Review began as a co-operative project between NOAA and the American Meteorological Society in 2002. This core publication began in 1872 and was the only journal of the U.S. Weather Bureau for many years. It continues to this day as a publication of the AMS beginning in 1974. From 1872 through to 1973, it was a publication by the U.S. government. The objective of this project was to allow complimentary, 24/7, access to the full text of this publication, while it was produced by the government. Consequently, the full text prior from 1973 backwards is on a government server and online indexing is created by AMS/Allen Press. Users can either search through the MWR archival website or go directly to the volumes and articles from the NOAA Central Library website. See demonstration online of both the AMS site and the library site (http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/)
The second project and the most currently heavily project is online access to the U.S. Daily Weather Maps beginning in Jan. 1871 and connecting to the current online pages at NCEP. These historical maps measure 19 inches by 24 inches, were printed in many, many colors and tones. Each daily page was imaged in color at actual size at 300 dpi. This enables the user to zoom into the particular section of the U.S. for a specific day. However, due to the enormous file size, users are required to download a DjVu Browser Plug-in using Internet Explorer. As the following online demonstration will show, one can trace the development of U.S. weather maps from the time they were published by the War Department, Signal Service, Division of Telegrams to the present. The evolution of weather “symbols”, high and low pressures, isobars and fronts as depicted in the U.S. Daily Weather Maps is a topic for a future dissertation that I offer to students of meteorology. See http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/dwm/data_rescue_daily_weather_maps.html.
The third project to be demonstrated today is the web site connecting to historical foreign climate data from 51 countries and colonies. See http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/data_rescue_home.html. From this web site, one selects that country and year of coverage for the weather data. In most instances these publications are columns of data that were typed, handwritten, and published prior to data manipulation by PC’s. Most data are from the late 1800 to 1970. The pages were imaged at 300 dpi in black and white format and over one million pages of data have been imaged. However, it was deliberately determined that the data pages would be imaged as printed and not re-keyed. This allows for the maximum viewing of the data rather than using up the funding for keying in data Users are encourage to enter the specific data and parameter at the local level depending upon the criteria for one’s project. The foreign climate data are a treasure trove for climate analysis. See demonstration.
Funding for these projects was provided by the NOAA Climate Database Modernization Program. Ongoing projects include imaging of the Annual Reports of the U.S. Weather Bureau from 1871, Annual Reports of the U.S. Fish Commission from 1870, and Annual Reports of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, U.S. Coast Pilots, etc.
MOre later......
Recorded presentationSession 1, History Symposium
Tuesday, 11 January 2005, 8:30 AM-4:30 PM
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