NOAA GHCNh Global Hourly Weather Station Explorer
Explore global hourly station observations
Climate Explorer provides an independent interface for the NOAA/NCEI GHCNh hourly archive. Climate Explorer is not affiliated with NOAA. Browse fixed land stations across the United States (US states including Alaska and Hawaii, plus Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands), Canada (provinces and territories), and worldwide networks. Select a period of up to 366 days to inspect quality-controlled hourly and synoptic temperature, dew point, relative humidity, wind speed and gusts, air pressure, visibility, and precipitation. It is designed for meteorological, climate, and environmental researchers analyzing sub-daily extreme weather timing, diurnal temperature variations, overnight heatwaves, cold front transitions, and multi-decade station time series.
NOAA/NCEI maintains, curates, quality-controls, and publishes the GHCNh archive using observations from contributing national and international meteorological networks. Climate Explorer retrieves, parses, and presents those records; NOAA/NCEI remains the authoritative source for the archive and its documentation.
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Dataset facts
- Official source
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information GHCNh.
- Coverage
- Fixed land stations across the United States (including Alaska, Hawaii and US territories), Canada, and worldwide; station-dependent hourly and synoptic records extend from as early as 1718 (earliest inventory start year) to present.
- Update frequency
- NOAA updates the archive daily.
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication; retain NOAA/NCEI attribution and source metadata.
- Important limitation
- Record length, reporting interval and available variables differ substantially by station and contributing source; quality flags should be retained in analysis.
Custom Climate Dashboards & Data Pipelines
Climate Explorer engineers custom meteorological solutions tailored to research institutions, public agencies, and enterprise operations. We build high-performance web applications and interactive dashboards using Next.js, React, Node.js, DuckDB, Shiny, and Python FastAPI, alongside automated data scraping & ingestion pipelines, historical observation archives, and specialized spatial homogenization & extreme-event analyses.
Use the country filter to see which stations are currently represented. An absent station, parameter or year means the selected archive inventory does not expose it here; it should not be interpreted as evidence that observations never existed.
About this Data
The GHCNh (Global Historical Climatology Network hourly) is NOAA/NCEI’s next-generation hourly and synoptic archive. NOAA reports that version 1 integrates approximately 110 contributing sources into harmonized period-of-record station files.
Climate Explorer provides an interactive way to inspect this network without first parsing raw source files. Use it to:
- find a station and confirm its identifier, coordinates, elevation and period of record;
- examine the sub-daily timing and duration of weather events within one station record;
- compare available variables and identify gaps before exporting a bounded interval;
- find stations by name or GHCN identifier.
Hourly Records & North American Coverage
GHCNh brings station records from multiple national networks into one harmonized archive. For North American research, it offers comprehensive coverage across:
- United States Stations: NOAA-catalogued stations in the US states (including Alaska and Hawaii), Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.
- Canadian Stations: NOAA-catalogued stations in Canada, available through the Canada country filter.
- Station Search: Find Station searches by station name or 11-character GHCN identifier (e.g.,
USW00094908, Dubuque). US GHCN IDs of theUSW000form embed the 5-digit WBAN number (94908), so typing it can also match; Canadian and other IDs do not follow this pattern. - Data Export: Download parsed hourly station records to Excel (
.xlsx). For bulk workflows, NOAA separately publishes its source files in pipe-separated (.psv) and Apache Parquet formats.
The dataset’s hourly resolution reveals diurnal temperature cycles, nocturnal cooling limitations, peak wind gust timing, and atmospheric pressure drops that daily summaries hide.
Example: inspect an overnight heat sequence
Open the Dubuque Regional Airport hourly view, confirm station USW00094908, and compare temperature with dew point from 29 June through 1 July 2026. The hourly plots show when temperatures declined and whether high moisture coincided with limited overnight cooling. Check reporting intervals and missing rows before comparing durations or thresholds.
This view describes one airport station and one bounded interval; it does not establish conditions across the Midwest or convert the reports into official local-calendar daily summaries. For selection, quality-code checks, interval reconciliation and export steps, follow the GHCNh hourly analysis and export guide. The Dubuque nighttime-heat analysis documents an evidence-led application with a separate calculation method.
How to Interpret GHCNh Records
GHCNh is best understood as a global hourly reference archive. It is designed for questions where sub-daily timing matters: how temperatures evolve through the day, when a storm intensified, how quickly pressure changed, or how conditions differ between stations under the same broader weather system.
When interpreting the explorer, keep these points in mind:
- Hourly Data Captures Timing: The key strength of GHCNh is temporal detail. Use it when daily averages would hide the sequence, duration, or intensity of an event.
- Coverage Differs by Station: Some stations have long, dense records, while others have shorter or less complete histories. Always interpret comparisons in light of record length and data availability.
- Local Setting Still Matters: Airport stations, coastal sites, mountain valleys, and urban locations can show very different hourly behavior even within the same region or country.
- Hourly Is Not the Same as Real-Time: GHCNh is a historical and continuously updated archive, but it is not intended as a live operational feed in the same way as a near-real-time monitoring product.
- Use Multiple Variables Together: Temperature, precipitation, wind, and pressure often make the most sense when read together, especially during fast-changing events.
What This Explorer Is Best For
The GHCNh Explorer is strongest for sub-daily station timing and cross-border discovery. It is less suitable for near-real-time European monitoring or century-scale monthly trends, where the EuroMeteo real-time station explorer and GHCNm monthly trend explorer are better fits. National explorers such as DWD, Météo-France, JMA and IMGW provide more specialized country workflows.
To ensure performance with high-resolution hourly data, the analysis window is limited to 366 days. The date slider supports smart sliding to easily move this window through time.
Need a reproducible workflow? Read the GHCNh hourly analysis and export guide. For an evidence-led application, see the Dubuque nighttime-heat analysis.
Data source
- NOAA NCEI metadata landing page: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C01688.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the GHCNh dataset?
GHCNh stands for Global Historical Climatology Network hourly. NOAA/NCEI integrates hourly and synoptic observations from numerous contributing meteorological sources into harmonized files for fixed land stations worldwide.
What can hourly observations show?
Hourly observations can show when conditions changed, how long a threshold persisted, and whether a daily summary hides an evening or overnight sequence. Reporting intervals and completeness still need to be checked station by station.
Why might a country, station or parameter be missing?
GHCNh has worldwide coverage, but its inventory reflects contributed source records. Station availability, variables, reporting intervals and historical depth differ by country, station and period.
Does GHCNh include weather observations for the United States and Canada?
Yes. Select United States or Canada (or Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands) in the country filter, then use Find Station to search by station name or GHCN identifier. US GHCN IDs such as USW00094908 embed the 5-digit WBAN number.
How far back does the hourly data go?
The historical depth varies significantly by station. Some major international airports have hourly records extending back several decades, while newer remote stations might only have a few years of data. Use the date slider to explore a station’s available history.
How do I download global hourly weather data?
Select a country, station and date interval, open Dashboard → Data, and choose Export Hourly Excel. For bulk computational workflows, NOAA’s own source files are published in PSV and Parquet formats.
Does Climate Explorer produce the GHCNh observations?
No. Climate Explorer is an independent interface and is not affiliated with NOAA. NOAA/NCEI maintains, curates, quality-controls, and publishes the GHCNh archive using observations from contributing meteorological networks; Climate Explorer retrieves, parses, and presents those records.