Climate Data Collection

The Colorado Climate Center is part of the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and helps the State of Colorado monitor climate. The organization was created in 1974 by the Colorado State University Agricultural Experiment Station, and its program includes Climate Monitoring, Climate Research and Climate Services, and provides information and expertise on Colorado's climate.

The Colorado Climate Center acquired the documents contained in this collection from various weather monitoring organizations including the National Weather Service's (NWS) Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) and Mountain States Weather Services (MSWS).

The NWS Cooperative Observer Program is a weather and climate observing network of more than 11,000 volunteers who record observations from locations all over the United States. COOP was created in 1890 under the Organic Act with a two-fold mission: "To provide observational meteorological data, usually consisting of daily maximum and minimum temperatures, snowfall, and 24-hour precipitation totals, required to define the climate of the United States and to help measure long-term climate changes and to provide observational meteorological data in near real-time to support forecast, warning and other public service programs of the NWS." The volunteer observers record daily temperature and precipitation, as well as occasional additional meteorological or hydrological data. These daily reports are sent monthly to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) or a NWS office.

Mountain States Weather Services is an official National Weather Service cooperative observer that provides meteorological consulting and weather forecasting. MSWS was established in 1977 by Jim Wirshborn in Fort Collins, Colorado, and was later sold in 2003 to Day Weather Inc., based in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Providing weather forecasts, real-time weather products and weather warning services to various governmental and civil organizations, the MSWS enlists the assistance of more than 100 weather observers to record daily climate observations and to alert the area about severe weather. Climate data is collected and posted on the Internet with both hourly and daily summary information. Day Weather Inc. is a weather forecasting service in existence since 1992 that provides broadcast services, customized local weather pages for newspapers and forensic meteorological analyses to the western United States.