There are many resources on the Internet to obtain U.S. past weather records and data; you just have to know where to look. WeatherMatrix has been on the Internet for more than 10 years and through our vast research, we can present the following options.

Weather Observations | Severe Weather | Lightning Data | Radar | Other

If you don't want to do the research yourself, consider paying for forensic meteorological services. For example, AccuWeather researches past weather events and provides reports and expert testimony for attorneys, insurance companies and others seeking historical weather data and/or meteorological interpretation for any location in the world. Click here for more information on their services.

Looking for a specific temperature, wind speed, rainfall or snowfall for a particular city on a particular date? Normally, in the United States, we look at "official" U.S. government (National Weather Service) transmitted weather observations.*

Official historical weather data is maintained by the U.S. government's National Climatic Data Center Some information is online but some is pay-for-service.

Local National Weather Service offices often have climatological data for the stations in their area; however this ranges greatly by office. You can navigate to your local NWS office from this site.

Some commercial vendors also offer archived weather data. AccuWeather.com offers the last 12 years of daily quality-controlled temperature and precipitation data (including snow) for over 1500 locations in the United States. This is a subscription service; the last year is free on their public website. Go to this page then click on "Past Year" in the left hand (brown) navigation.

The Weather Underground offers unedited hourly and daily data (not including snowfall) going back 8 years for some locations. Put in your zipcode on their site and pick "Historical Conditions" at the bottom of the page. Any of the two above public websites may have terms and conditions which may prevent the use of data obtained from their website for commercial purposes; please check with them first before doing so.

*Non-government weather observation data may also be available from various Departments of Transportation or other independent weather networks and mesonet providerssuch as AWS (WeatherBug), FSL, MESOWEST, ROMAN, or AnythingWeather.com. Contact those sites individually for more information.

In the state of Pennsylvania, the P.A. State Climatologist site maintains archives of NWS, D.O.T., and Dept. Of Environmental Protection weather data.

WeatherMatrix maintains an archive, stretching back as far as 10 years, of government reports of hail, high winds and tornadoes. For more information on these weather events, see our Weather Archive section.

Hail is a tough weather variable to get reports on. Unless it is big enough and falls in a populated area, it doesn't get reported. It is not recorded like other weather (snow, rain, temperature, wind, etc.) and the National Weather Service maintains no records on it. Here are some ways that you can obtain reports of hail on the Internet.

The WeatherMatrix National StormMatrix product shows current hail reports from all NEXRAD radars. Archived data will soon be available.

WeatherMatrix Members' Storm Reports may sometimes include reports of hail, and reports of large hail from the StormMatrix (see above) will soon be transmitted to the StormReports list for archival purposes. WeatherMatrix Members can receive these reports in real-time in their email box.

Our 10-year archive of National Weather Service Local Storm Reports contain hail reports called in by citizens. The Storm Prediction Center summarizes the Local Storm Reports on a daily basis and we have this data archived several years back.

Historical Storm Reports are available on the National Climatic Data Center's website. This data is drawn from the Local Storm Reports issued by the National Weather Service. You can also order their monthly paper publication "Storm Data" for a fee; this is the official record of hail reports in the United States, but sometimes runs up to 1 year behind the current date.

The Storm Prediction Center maintains reports of hail, high wind gusts, and tornados since 1985 at this location.

Until 2004, accurate lightning strike in the United States was monopolized by Vaisala Inc., and they were the sole source of both archived and current lightning strike data. For more information on their observational lightning services see our Lightning Section.

After 2004, The U.S. Precision Lightning Network launched and now has archived data available (even through some of its resellers, for example AccuWeather.com LightningPlus).

For archived data, contact one of the companies above, or use a forensics firm as a middle-man.

You may wish to contact the owners of any personal lightning detectors but their data would not be nearly as accurate as the official data, and would not likely stand up in court.

Archived radar data is also available (see below) but it will only show the intensity of the rain, not lightning data in particular.

Archives of radar images are available from NCDC (U.S. 1995+) and UCAR (30 days regional and local). See our Radar Section for additional information.

WeatherMatrix archives other weather data in our Archive section; if you still can't find what you need there, do a Google search or contact us for additional information.