Seeking Late 19th Century Weather Data for Far NorCal
December 19, 2014 9:00 AM Subscribe
Calling all Reference Librarians: I'm looking for daily weather data for Shasta County in California from 1892. I have no idea where to begin. Help?
In particular, I'm looking for certain dates in May and July. Also, a particular date in June for Woodland, Yolo County, for extra points.
In particular, I'm looking for certain dates in May and July. Also, a particular date in June for Woodland, Yolo County, for extra points.
The Drought Risk Atlas from the National Drought Mitigation Center has one of the most easily searchable climate databases, for which I found at least 5 stations in the Shasta area with downloadable data in seconds. (For example, station 041907, Coleman Fisheries, has 69 years of data.) You can search via map.
(I'd link to your specific stations directly but it doesn't work that way.)
posted by barchan at 9:17 AM on December 19, 2014
(I'd link to your specific stations directly but it doesn't work that way.)
posted by barchan at 9:17 AM on December 19, 2014
The Woodland Station only has data going back to 1926. Here is the direct link to download the data (warning: automatic download).
posted by barchan at 9:30 AM on December 19, 2014
posted by barchan at 9:30 AM on December 19, 2014
Just a "where to begin" option. The California Digital Newspaper collection contains newspapers from those dates, but the closest they get is Sacramento which is probably not close enough, but maybe it is? You can browse a little and find mentions of Redding from May 1892 but this may be too much work depending on what you are dealing with. Same for Woodland.
What you really want, for the late 1800s is the Monthly Weather Review from the American Meteorological Society. Here's the issue for May 1892 but they just have individual reports for the states, not a lot to go on. The tables at the end have min/max temps and precipitation for the month which is still not exactly what you are looking for, but zeroing in.
At this point you'll have to figure out how badly you want this information. Because you can generalize at a month level but to get to the date specifically might be more challenging. It's also totally possible someone has links to other better resources, but at this point I'd be considering an email to the local library to see what they have in terms of historical newspapers.
posted by jessamyn at 10:57 AM on December 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
What you really want, for the late 1800s is the Monthly Weather Review from the American Meteorological Society. Here's the issue for May 1892 but they just have individual reports for the states, not a lot to go on. The tables at the end have min/max temps and precipitation for the month which is still not exactly what you are looking for, but zeroing in.
At this point you'll have to figure out how badly you want this information. Because you can generalize at a month level but to get to the date specifically might be more challenging. It's also totally possible someone has links to other better resources, but at this point I'd be considering an email to the local library to see what they have in terms of historical newspapers.
posted by jessamyn at 10:57 AM on December 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
You might also contact the California State Library to see if any governmental agency kept weather records that might be filed away in their collections.
I'm in Yolo County and am always looking for an excuse to visit the library. If you find something that might help either in the Yolo Public Library or at the UC Davis library, let me know and I can go there for you. Same goes for the State Library, although they're only open during the week, so it's a bit more of a challenge.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:56 AM on December 19, 2014
I'm in Yolo County and am always looking for an excuse to visit the library. If you find something that might help either in the Yolo Public Library or at the UC Davis library, let me know and I can go there for you. Same goes for the State Library, although they're only open during the week, so it's a bit more of a challenge.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:56 AM on December 19, 2014
You might also want to get in touch with the California State Climatologist in the Department of Water Resources or the Western Regional Climate Center. One or the other may have the data you want, but even if they don't they should be able to lead you in the right direction.
posted by plastic_animals at 1:57 PM on December 19, 2014
posted by plastic_animals at 1:57 PM on December 19, 2014
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posted by plastic_animals at 9:04 AM on December 19, 2014 [1 favorite]