Historic land surface observations data from the Met Office station network. Data are available for the period 1900 to 1999 for daily measurements. Hourly observations are for now available back to January 1985. The dataset comprises daily and hourly weather measurements, hourly wind parameters, max and min air temperatures, soil temperatures, sunshine duration and radiation measurements and hourly and daily rain measurements.
This dataset has been SUPERSEDED BY THE NEW MIDAS Land Surface Stations data (1853-current). It has been retained for reference purposes. Users with access to the MIDAS Land surface stations dataset automatically have access to this dataset as well.
The daily data are available online from UK stations in 110 UK regions (mainly counties) over the period 1853 to July 2000.
The hourly data are for available from stations in the 110 UK regions also covered by the daily data from 1983 to July 2000.
2015-03-13 PLEASE NOTE: This dataset has been superseded by the Show More 2015-03-13 PLEASE NOTE: This dataset has been superseded by the Met Office MIDAS dataset at the BADC. Show Less
1.1. UK daily observations (1853-July 2000) in 110 UK counties:
This dataset contains land surface measurements as reported daily from stations in UK since 1853.
- Daily Weather Observations (.dwx) (sunshine amount, state of concrete slab, snow lying on the ground, snow depth, fresh snow amount, day of snow, hail, thunder and gale), back to 1880, from UK Stations.
- Max and Min temperatures (.temp) (maximum and minimum air temperatures, minimum grass temperature and minimum concrete temperature) back to 1853, from UK Stations.
- Daily rain measurements (.drain) including precipitation amount only, back to 1853, from UK Stations.
- Soil temperature parameters (.tsoil) are now being archived at the BADC, back to 1908, from UK Stations.
1.2. UK Synoptic (hourly) Stations (1983-July 2000) in 110 UK counties:
- Hourly Weather Observations (.hwx) (10 minute wind speed and direction, present and past weather, cloud amount, type and base, visibility, MSL pressure, dry-bulb temperature, wet-bulb temperature, dew-point temperature, state of ground and 10 minute maximum gust speed), from UK Stations.
- Radiation measurements (.radt) for about 103 UK stations only (global, diffuse and direct solar radiation)
- Hourly sunshine duration (.hsun), from UK Stations.
- Hourly Wind parameters (.wind) including mean wind direction and speed, max gust direction and speed and time of maximum gust, from UK Stations.
1.3. UK Raingauge Stations (hourly data from 1983 to July 2000, daily data from 1900 to July 2000):
- Hourly rain measurements (.hrain) including precipitation amount and duration, from UK Stations.
- Daily rain measurements (.drain) including precipitation amount only, from UK Stations.
The parameters measured vary from station to station. So not all parameters are available from all stations. For examples, Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) cannot provide observations of cloud types.
NOTE: The BADC holds the Met Office surface data as provided by the Met Office and therefore the BADC can only supply Surface Met data archived at the Met Office.
The Met Office Land Surface data held at the BADC, are stored in a simple ASCII format (plain text and "human" readable).
| 60.7600° | ||||
| -57.8120° | 55.4619° | |||
| -51.6960° |
