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This service emits the daily climatology, sometimes referred to as normals, but normals is a poor name, but I digress. You can either request entire state's climatology values for a specific day or a single locations climatology for the entire year. Day values use the year 2000, but only imply the day of the year.

Changelog

  • 2025-04-16: Added support for Microsoft Excel output and fixed csv download.
  • 2025-01-28: Initial implementation

Example Requests

Provide the January 1 climatology for all stations in Iowa using the NCEI 1991-2020 dataset.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/normals.py?mode=day&month=1&day=1&source=ncei_climate91

Provide the IEM computed period of record climatology for Ames, IA in Excel

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/normals.py?mode=station&station=IATAME&source=climate&fmt=excel

Provide the NCEI 1981-2010 climatology for Ames, IA in JSON, this has a source of ncdc_climate81 due to lame reasons.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/normals.py?mode=station&station=IATAME&source=ncdc_climate81&fmt=json

Same request, but view "online" instead of downloading a file.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/normals.py?mode=station&station=IATAME&source=ncdc_climate81&fmt=online

Same request, but as a JSON object.

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/request/normals.py?mode=station&station=IATAME&source=ncdc_climate81&fmt=json

CGI Arguments

The following table lists the CGI arguments that are accepted by this service. A HTTP GET request is required. Fields of type Multi-Params or CSV value can accept either a comma separated list or multiple parameter and value combinations. For example, ?foo=1&foo=2 is equivalent to ?foo=1,2.

Field Type Description
day integer The day of the year, only used for day mode
fmt string The format of the output, either csv, json, excel
mode string The mode of request, either station or day
month integer The month of the year, only used for day mode
source string The source of the data, defaults to ncei_climate91
station string The station identifier, only used for station mode