The National Weather Service (NWS) periodically conducts sensor comparison studies to ensure that proposed observing equipment meets requirements set forth in specific solicitations. Other comparison studies may occasionally be conducted in support of a specific project or request, the requirements for which provide the evaluation criteria. The final result of these studies, along with the test data, is usually a summary report documenting the suitability and performance of the selected sensor(s) based on criteria established in the acquisition specification.

The Enhanced Master Station History Report (EMSHR) is a compiled list of basic, historical information for every station in the station history database, beginning in the 1700s through the present. The Enhanced MSHR version contains similar data elements and is in a similar format as the Standard/Legacy MSHR (DSI-9767_01), but the Enhanced MSHR includes additional stations that are included in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN)-Daily product. Also, the Enhanced MSHR incorporates additional station networks, including international stations/networks.

This report pertains to the roughly 9,000 NWS Cooperative Network sites whose observations are published in NCDC's Climatological Data or Hourly Precipitation Data publications. It is a compilation of elements observed and/or reported for all published stations in the Cooperative network. It uses repeating groups of details by station, data program, element and equipment.

The Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI) is an integrated database of severe weather records for the United States. SWDI enables a user to search through a variety of source data sets in the NCDC (now NCEI) archive in order to find records covering a particular time period and geographic region, and then to download the results of the search in a variety of formats. The formats currently supported are Shapefile (for GIS), KMZ (for Google Earth), CSV (comma-separated), and XML.

The State of the Climate is a collection of periodic summaries recapping climate-related occurrences on both a global and national scale. The State of the Climate Monthly Overview-National Wildfires provides a summary of wildland fires in the U.S. and related weather and climate conditions. Statistical summaries such as the number of fires and acres burned are provided as are reports from the U.S. Drought Monitor and fire danger maps. Monthly reports for the summer "fire season" and annual summaries begin in July 2002.

The US Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS) report surface marine observations in both real-time (FM-13 ship format) and delayed-mode (International Maritime Meteorological Tape - IMMT format). To do this, most operating vessels use e-logbook software that allows an observer to enter information, then the software can transmit a real-time report as well as save the same report in a different format to the ship's hard drive for later access, i.e. delayed mode observation (DM).

Western Pacific typhoon aircraft reconnaissance data from the years 1946 - 1965 and 1978, excluding 1952, were transcribed from original documents, or copy of original documents, into a spreadsheet. Microfilm and paper documents were inspected for reconnaissance aircraft fixes and other data collected during flight. Data was collected from reports such as, tropical cyclone consolidated reports, annual typhoon reports, storm summary and life history of the typhoon reports, and aircraft weather code charts.

To aid in better understanding the temperature and precipitation data of the spatially variable climate of Alaska and Northwest Canada, this dataset was created via statistical downscaling methods so that hydrologists and other users would have access to gridded estimates (two km resolution) of cumulative precipitation and mean temperature for every month between 1961 and 2009 in Alaska, Yukon Territory, and British Columbia.

These daily weather records were compiled from a subset of stations in the Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN)-Daily dataset. A weather record is considered broken if the value exceeds the maximum (or minimum) value recorded for an eligible station. A weather record is considered tied if the value is the same as the maximum (or minimum) value recorded for an eligible station. Daily weather parameters include Highest Min/Max Temperature, Lowest Min/Max Temperature, Highest Precipitation, Highest Snowfall and Highest Snow Depth. All stations meet defined eligibility criteria.

The US Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS) report surface marine observations in both real-time (FM-13 ship format) and delayed-mode (International Maritime Meteorological Tape - IMMT format). To do this, most operating vessels use e-logbook software that allows an observer to enter information, then the software can transmit a real-time report as well as save the same report in a different format to the ship's hard drive for later access, i.e. delayed mode observation (DM).