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Global Summary of the Month

Available since v0.7 as noaa:gsom. The NCEI dataset is global-summary-of-the-month, with anonymous CSV access and the same station search/50-station chunking as GHCN-Daily. Geographic selection discovers station IDs through the search endpoint; data requests use those explicit IDs. A data request with only a bbox returns HTTP 400 (a station is required). Use either stations or a location/bbox, not both. units is metric (default) or standard; unknown parameters are rejected.

Both start and end dates are required. Every UTC calendar month touched by the interval is returned in full: May 6–7 selects May; May 31–June 1 selects both months. The adapter expands search and data bounds to those whole months, so requests for the same months have identical asset URLs and IDs. Asset time bounds cover full months; provenance pins the normalized source URL, while the manifest retains the original query. CSV DATE is YYYY-MM.

Common variables include PRCP (monthly precipitation total) and TAVG (monthly mean temperature). With metric output these are millimeters and degrees Celsius. Variable availability depends on the station; unrecognized codes are rejected by NCEI. The API CSV has no units row, so open() keeps the requested unit system in attrs["usdata"]["properties"]["units"] rather than adding a per-column units map. See the NCEI API documentation and monthly example.

See the service research notes for dated upstream probes.

Metadata sources

Every value in the catalog entry's resolution, cadence, citation, terms, variables, and limits comes from one of these pages. A field the agency does not publish is left empty rather than estimated.

  • Updates, citation, and terms: the NCEI dataset record, which states weekly updates and the Lawrimore et al. (2016) citation with its DOI.
  • Resolution and variables: the same record and the element codes this guide names, with the units the Access Data Service returns under units=metric. The element set is open and station-dependent.
  • Latency is empty: the record states no lag between a month's end and its summary.

All NOAA datasets.

Reference

noaa:gsom · Released · Included since usdata 0.7. Global Summary of the Month.

At a glance

Parameters

Pass these as --param name=value to the CLI, as params: entries in a manifest, or as keyword arguments to build_query.

Parameter Meaning
stations Station ids, comma-separated or a list; otherwise a location selects them.
units metric (default) or standard.

Variables

Variable Units Meaning
PRCP mm Monthly precipitation total (metric units)
TAVG degrees Celsius Monthly mean temperature (metric units)

Catalog facts

  • Availability: since 0.7
  • Domain: Surface weather
  • Spatial resolution: Land surface stations, derived from GHCN-Daily
  • Temporal resolution: Monthly
  • Updates: Weekly
  • Terms of use: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/metadata/geoportal/rest/metadata/item/gov.noaa.ncdc:C00946/html
  • Citation: Lawrimore, Jay H.; Ray, Ron; Applequist, Scott; Korzeniewski, Bryant; Menne, Matthew J. (2016): Global Summary of the Month (GSOM), Version 1. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. https://doi.org/10.7289/V5QV3JJ5
  • Geographic bounds (WGS84): west -180°, south -90°, east 180°, north 90°
  • Coverage varies by station, product, and date; the range above does not guarantee observations.
  • Upstream documentation
  • License: US Government Work (public domain)
  • Transport: http
  • Adapter: usdata.providers.noaa.gsom:GlobalSummaryMonthly