A spatially comprehensive, meteorological data set for Mexico, the U.S., and southern Canada (NCEI Accession 0129374)

A data set of observed daily and monthly averaged precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, gridded to a 1/16° (~6km) resolution that spans the entire country of Mexico, the conterminous U.S. (CONUS), and regions of Canada south of 53° N for the period 1950-2013. The dataset improves previous products in spatial extent, orographic precipitation adjustment over Mexico and parts of Canada, and reduction of transboundary discontinuities. The precipitation is adjusted for orographic effects using an elevation-aware 1981-2010 precipitation climatology. Because of the consistent gridding methodology, the current product reduces transboundary discontinuities making it suitable for estimating large-scale hydrometeorologic phenomena. Also included are daily wind data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction - National Centers for Atmospheric Research (NCEP - NCAR) resampled to the same grid as temperature and precipitation.