The decennial release of official climate normals for the United States is of great importance to a broad spectrum of users, including the National Weather Service, broadcast meteorologists, energy companies, water resource and agricultural agencies, insurance and weather derivatives companies, and business planning consultants, to name a few. The 1971-2000 normals, which were released by the National Climatic Data Center in Fall 2001, are described. Normals products include temperature, precipitation, and degree day statistics for over 7500 stations in the conterminous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Pacific Islands. Normals statistics are grouped into monthly, daily, divisional, and supplemental products. Updated methodologies for computing the normals are discussed. A number of applications of the normals are also presented, with a focus on degree day data applications for energy use and design.