The data are climatological summaries for the month made by the observing station or the responsible National Meteorological Service using all data available locally.

The CLIMAT report data contain the following observations:

The monthly mean air temperature, monthly mean station level pressure, and monthly mean vapour pressure are all measured using 3-hourly observations (i.e. 0000 hours, 0300 hours, 0600 hours, etc.). The monthly mean station level pressure and vapour pressure are recorded to the nearest 0.1 hectopascal, and the monthly mean air temperature is recorded to the nearest 0.1 degree Celsius.

The monthly mean daily maximum and minimum temperature are measured to the nearest 0.1 degree Celsius.

The total precipitation for the month is measured to the nearest millimetre.

The total sunshine for the month is recorded to the nearest hour.

The days where precipitation /snow depth/wind speed are greater than specified limits is recorded as a No if this is not the case. The same coding applies for the days of minimum temperature/maximum temperature/visibility are less than specified limits, and also the days of other phenomena.

The Met Office wish to monitor the use of this data and require an acknowledgement of the data source if they are used in any publication. Their data is therefore restricted. The online application for access to the Met Office MetDB data includes acceptance of the Met Office Conditions of Use.

Please note that the Met Office data sets held at the BADC are available for bona fide academic research only. If you wish to access the Met Office data for commercial or personal purposes, please contact the Met Office directly

Your application for accessing the dataset will be processed within a day of receipt and you will receive a confirmation email. Provided your application is complete and fully meets the Met Office conditions, your web account will be activated to allow you access to the Met Office MetDB data directories via your login account from the BADC WWW Browse Archive pages.

The data are held in the BADC-CSV file format, each of which will contain one or more data records and are comma separated variables. "Metadata" are provided giving a full description of the content of the data. More information about the file format can be found on the BADC-CSV format page, which also contains two example files taken from the MetDB dataset.

Some general information about surface station readings can be obtained from the abridged version of MIDAS Data Users Guide, provided by the Met Office. This document describes the meteorological surface data in the Met Office Database - MIDAS. This guide is rich in information and is aimed at those with little familiarity with observing methods or instrumentation.

Details of the WMO Meteorological codes used at weather observing stations (daily and hourly weather) explain the codes used in this dataset further.

For more information on the observation stations and instruments used to collect measurements for the CLIMAT records, the Met Office Surface Data Users Guide, describes the meteorological surface data in the Met Office Database - MIDAS.

If you have queries about these pages or about obtaining the Met Office surface stations data from the BADC then you should contact BADC Support. Your query should be answered within one working day. When follow-up work is required, the BADC support will carry out the work as quickly and efficiently as possible, and in any case, the user will be kept informed of progress.