Available Climate Data in Illinois
Dr. Jim Angel, State Climatologist
We have a lot of data available in digital form through our access to the
Midwestern Climate Information System (MICIS).
There may be a data charge to recover our costs of providing the data. Typical charges range from $15 to $30.
- Daily climate data (digital) for about 400 stations in
Illinois of which about 200 are currently active (see Table 1).
Parameters reported include: high and low temperature, precipitation, snowfall, and
snowdepth. We also have limited data available on pan evaporation, and soil temperatures.
Many of these stations go back to 1948, although some stations go back to the turn of the
century.
- Surface hourly data for Chicago, Peoria, Rockford,
Springfield, Moline, and St Louis. Parameters reported include: air temperature, dewpoint,
wet-bulb, pressure, relative humidity, visibility, cloud cover, and winds.
- Hourly and 15-minute precipitation data (digital) for Illinois for about 150 stations.
- Local Climatological Data, a NOAA publication, for Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, Springfield, Moline, and St Louis.
- Storm Data, a NOAA publication, for the entire U.S.
- Historical Climate Division (digital) data back to 1895 for temperature, precipitation, and Palmer drought indices.
- Modeled solar radiation and potential evapotranspiration data for Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, Springfield, Moline, and St Louis.
- Modeled soil moisture data for the 9 Illinois climate divisions back to 1949.