Identification

Title

U.S.A.F. DATSAV3 Surface Observations, 1901-continuing

Alternative title(s)

d463002

Abstract

<p>This ASCII data set (DATSAV3) is produced at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) from a USAF binary set (DATSAV2), a collection of worldwide surface weather observations from sources such as the the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) and Automated Weather Network (AWN). The Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) decoded most of the collected observations for the Air Force Combat Climatology Center (AFCCC) where final decoding, validation, and quality control created DATSAV2.</p> <p>Mandatory data includes pressure, temperature, visibility, sky condition, and wind observation, but there may also be additional data, data remarks, or data element quality sections.</p> <p>NCDC provides quarterly updates to DSS, usually with a two-month delay. The earliest data is for 1901. The earliest years have the least volume of data, a few hundred megabytes; the volume in the 1950s-early 1960s increased by a factor of 10-20; 1965-1972 shows a decrease because of a loss of data; beginning in 1973 with about 5 gigabytes of data, volume has gradually increased to about 20 gigabytes per year. There are now about 10,000 active stations.</p> <p>Similar data sets prepared by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) are <a href="http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds464.0/">ds464.0</a> (beginning February 1975), and <a href="http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds461.0/">ds461.0</a> (beginning April 2000). </p> <p style="color: red">This dataset has been superseded by <a href="/datasets/ds463.3/">ds463.3</a>.</p>

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d463002/

protocol: https

name: Dataset Description

description: Related Link

function: information

https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d463002/dataaccess/

protocol: https

name: Data Access

description: Related Link

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

codeSpace

Dataset language

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

dataset

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2021-03-30

Keyword set

keyword value

WEATHER STATIONS > WEATHER STATIONS

FIXED OBSERVATION STATIONS > FIXED OBSERVATION STATIONS

GROUND STATIONS > GROUND STATIONS

METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS > METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Keyword set

keyword value

AWDN > Automated Weather Data Network

GTS > Global Telecommunications System

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SEA LEVEL PRESSURE

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WAVES > WAVE HEIGHT

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > SURFACE WINDS

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD PROPERTIES > CLOUD BASE HEIGHT

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > STATION HEIGHT

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD TYPES

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE > MAXIMUM/MINIMUM TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > SOLID PRECIPITATION > HAIL

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > DEW POINT TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > AIR QUALITY > VISIBILITY

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WAVES > WAVE PERIOD

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD PROPERTIES > CLOUD FREQUENCY

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > SOLID PRECIPITATION > SNOW

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SURFACE PRESSURE

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WAVES > WAVE SPEED/DIRECTION

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE > AIR TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > PRESSURE TENDENCY

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2025-10-03

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1901-01

End position

2008-05

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2003-06-16

Frequency of update

annually

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

email address

datahelp@ucar.edu

web address

https://gdex.ucar.edu

name: NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

description: The Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX), managed by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NSF NCAR, contains a large collection of meteorological, atmospheric composition, and oceanographic observations, and operational and reanalysis model outputs, integrated with NSF NCAR High Performance Compute services to support atmospheric and geosciences research.

function: download

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-10-09T01:24:42Z

Metadata language