Links to Archived Weather Data
NOTE: Most of the links below are intended for meteorological research purposes, and may not always be available. For official weather and climate records, visit the National Climatic Data Center.
Starting points
MMM image archive This is probably the best "one-stop shop" for looking at archived images. It includes radar composites, satellite images, soundings, surface and upper-air maps, and much more.
SPC severe events archive This is another good place to get started with surface and upper air analyses, soundings, etc.
CSU-Atmos archive Has archives of what used to be "DIFAX" maps, such as NCEP surface and upper-air analyses
For GEMPAK users: Iowa State GEMPAK archive This is an outstanding archive of data in GEMPAK format, including model analyses and forecasts, surface and upper air data, and more. It also does have a few archived images for quick looks.
Surface data
MesoWest Outstanding real-time and archived surface observations from both standard sources and the various mesonets around the country. Contains a wealth of archived observations that can be easily plotted via their web interface.
Plymouth State Allows you to create your own surface charts.
NCAR/RAP Plotted surface maps, they keep about the past week on their site.
Soundings
Wyoming Comprehensive sounding archive, goes back to the 1970s.
NCDC Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive Long-term sounding archive in text format.
Upper-air
Plymouth State Plot your own upper-air maps.
Dynamic Tropopause maps--Albany Real-time and archived DT maps, and you can create nice animations.
Wind profilers
NOAA profiler network Has an archive of wind profiler data over the US.
Radar
Iowa Environmental Mesonet RadMap Make your own radar mosaic maps including custom overlays
NCAR/RAP Archived radar goes back about a week.
NSSL/OU Q2 Post-processed radar data archive, along with quantitative precipitation estimates.
NCDC NEXRAD inventory If you want the actual data (rather than just images), this is where to get them. Full level 2 and level 3 data.
WSI NOWRad composite data These are 2-km, 15-minute radar composites for the entire US. Download the data and create your own plots (easiest using GEMPAK.)
Satellite
NOAA CLASS Archived satellite data from both geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites.
CSU/CIRA Archived GOES satellite images going back four weeks.
Model analyses and forecasts
NCDC NOMADS This is the repository for archived model analyses and forecasts from the NCEP models. You can make some simple plots right from the web page, or download the data (GRIB format).
CSU On our site with real-time weather data, we also maintain an archive of model forecast images going back several weeks. Just click on any of the images, and there is a menu for "previous runs" on the left-hand side that you can use to choose a previous model run.
ARM archive The ARM program has some archived RUC analyses...you'll need to get an account (free), and then you want to look for files called "sgpallruc*" for the dates you're looking for. These are in netCDF format, so they might be the way to go if you prefer that format.
North American Regional Reanalysis Reanalysis that goes back to 1979. 3-hour time resolution, 32-km spatial resolution over North America.
TIGGE archive TIGGE is the THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble. It has archived ensemble forecasts from several centers around the world, with data going back to late 2006.
Misc.
SPC mesoanalysis archive Archive of SPC's objective analysis--only has the full country images in the archive, rather than the individual subregions.
NWS text product archive Download archived text products (i.e., forecast discussions, zone forecasts, warnings, etc.)
NWS QPE Plots of quantitative precipitation estimates using gauge and radar data.
Stage IV precip data This is what goes into the above images, but here you can download the hourly data (GRIB format.)
Iowa Environmental Mesonet "Cow" Provides (unofficial) archive of National Weather Service storm-based warnings and how they verified.