How to Find Recent Weather and Climate Data on the NCEI Website

Updated

NCEI (ncei.noaa.gov) provides two main paths for recent conditions: the Recent Weather search for local weather data in your area, and the Featured News section for monthly global and U.S. temperature and precipitation monitoring reports. Use Recent Weather when you need data for a specific place; use Featured News when you want the latest national or global climate summary. Note that NCEI states it is currently moving data and applications to the cloud, which "may result in temporary data access delays," and it directs users to its cloud migration overview, FAQ, and Alerts page for impacted products.

Find local recent weather data

The homepage's "Looking for Data?" area includes a Recent Weather option described as: "Search for recent weather data in your area."

  1. Go to ncei.noaa.gov.
  2. In the "Looking for Data?" section, select Recent Weather.
  3. Enter your location in the search to pull recent weather data for that area.
  4. Expected result: recent weather observations for your area, drawn from NCEI's archive rather than a forecast.

One boundary to keep in mind: the same section states that "Weather forecasts are available through the National Weather Service." NCEI is the archive and monitoring side, so if you need what's coming rather than what happened, go to the National Weather Service instead.

Read the latest climate monitoring reports

NCEI's Featured News carries recurring temperature and precipitation monitoring, including global and U.S. monthly summaries. Examples shown on the site:

Report What it covers Example figures cited
Monitoring Global Temperature and Precipitation (August 2026) Global surface temperature vs. the 20th-century average August 2026 was 2.38°F (1.32°C) above average — the warmest August in the 1850–2026 record
Monitoring the U.S. Temperature and Precipitation (August 2026) CONUS monthly and seasonal averages August averaged 75.6°F, 3.5°F above average; meteorological summer (June–August) averaged 74.4°F, 3.0°F above average

These posts are the fastest way to get a current climate picture without running your own analysis. Each has a "Read More" link for the full summary, and a "View More News Archive" link leads to older items.

Choose the right entry point

  • You need data for one location, recently: Recent Weather search.
  • You need the newest global or U.S. climate summary: Featured News.
  • You need a forecast: National Weather Service, not NCEI.
  • You need archived datasets beyond recent conditions: the Access and Archive sections of the site.

Check access status before you rely on a dataset

Because the cloud migration is in progress, confirm availability first. NCEI points users to three places: the cloud migration overview, its FAQ, and the NCEI Alerts page, which lists impacted products and datasets. If a search or download fails or stalls, check Alerts before assuming the data doesn't exist.