In the following sections you will find a description of each data category with a direct link to the stocks.
1. Parameters measured at DWD stations and equivalent partner network stations
The CDC-OpenData section provides historical and current meteorological data for numerous parameters, e.g. for air temperature together with humidity, soil temperature, precipitation height, pressure, wind speed and direction, visibility, solar radiation, sunshine duration and cloud cover in 10-minute, hourly, daily, monthly, annual or multi-year (e.g.: 30-year average) resolution..
Approximately 400 climate stations are currently active. The data of each station are stored in a ZIP file together with the station metadata.
Available resolutions are available for:
10-minute | hourly | daily | monthly and multi-annual values 1961-1990 | 1971-2000 | 1981-2010
For the mentioned parameters the corresponding station lists are available at:
https://opendata.dwd.de/climate_environment/CDC/help/
Date values, i.e. measurements of meteorological data at agreed times, are available for:
Air pressure | Temperature | Cloudiness | Vapour pressure and relative humidity | Soil condition | Visibility | Wind
and, compared to the hourly values, are partly available as longer time series.
The Date values of a selection of 81 climate stations distributed over Germany are provided in the traditional KL format (with 36 meteorological parameters).
City stations are set up especially for measurements in urban areas.
Precipitation data
The precipitation data which the DWD receives via its special precipitation measuring network and the equivalent partner measuring networks are listed in
1-minute | 10-minute | hourly | daily | monthly Resolution
from about 2000 active precipitation stations (list overview of precipitation stations) available.
Snow depths and water equivalents are available in daily resolution.
Observed weather phenomena
Weather phenomena include thunderstorms, black ice, sleet, hail, fog, frost, storm>=6 Bft, storm>=8 Bft and dew (during the course of the day). The offer includes the historically available observations, i.e. individual time series go back to the 19th century and are available in the following resolutions:
daily | monthly | annual
Phenological observations
Our phenological data are collected at about 1200 active stations with the help of the instant and annual detectors. On selected plants, such as apple, birch, snowdrop, gooseberry, wheat, wine, etc., the different stages of development are observed and reported to the DWD annually (annual reporters) or immediately (immediate reporters).
Data from radiosonde ascents
In the subdirectory high_resolution/, series of measurements with high temporal resolution (2-10 seconds) and spatial coordinate information (balloon position) are available. The low_resolution/ directory contains data in the traditional output form (main print areas and prominent points).
Monthly profiles of 12 radiosondes (balloon soundings) are available in the original and homogenized (Explanation: Homogenization).
==> Please pay particular attention to the technical notes in the "General information for all climate data" at the end of this document. <==
2. Derived parameters at station locations
Agricultural meteorological models provide soil parameters at station locations for:
- potential and real evaporation -over grass and sandy loam-,
- the soil moisture -under grass and sandy loam-,
- the soil temperatures at depths of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 cm -under untilled soil-,
- and the maximum frost penetration depth.
Available resolutions are available for:
daily | monthly | and multi-annual (1991-2010)
The soil parameters are calculated for about 320 station sites, the time series begin in 1991.
There is a list and a map of the locations for which the calculations were made.
Technical parameters include heating degree days and cooling days.
3. Grid fields for Germany
The grid fields cover Germany in different temporal resolutions. However, the grid values are not available for all parameters.
The following precipitation grids are available:
- With continuous updating:
- RADOLAN precipitation grids are derived from radar data and station data ► hourly | daily
- REGNIE precipitation grids, on the other hand, are only calculated from the measured data of the precipitation stations ► daily | monthly | multi-annual
- Climate stations are the data basis for grids in ► monthly | half-yearly | annual | and multi-annual Resolution
- From recalculation based on radar data with better correction methods:
- RADKLIM Version 2017.002: Post-processed radar-based, station-calibrated hourly precipitation totals from 2001.
- RADKLIM Version 2017.002: Post-processed radar-based, quasi-calibrated 5-minute precipitation totals from 2001.
The data are available on a Germany-wide grid with a grid width of 1 km x 1 km in polarstereographic projection and cover the period 2001 to 2017. The radar climatology version 2017.002 contains, in comparison to version 2016.003, in addition an extensive correction of radar artefacts.
Heavy precipitation statistics (KOSTRA-DWD) provide information on the probability of occurrence of heavy rain of various durations in Germany.
Agrometeorological models provide grids of soil parameters: derived soil moisture, soil temperature at 5 cm depth, frost penetration depth, potential and real evaporation. Available resolutions are available for:
daily | monthly | und multi-annual (1991-2010)
Air temperature (average, max, min), sunshine duration, drought index, number of days with snow cover, frost days, as well as the number of days with threshold values for temperature and precipitation are available in the resolution:
monthly | annual | and multi-annual
Solar radiation grid (1 x 1 km; all derived from satellite data and ground measurements)
- Global radiation ► monthly | annual | multi-annual mean value
- diffused radiation ► monthly | annual
- direct radiation ► monthly | annual
Wind energy parameters are derived from measurements close to the ground and are available as a multi-annual average, both in a 1 x 1 km and a 200 x 200 m resolution.
In the QuWind100 project, a quantitative wind climatology for current and future wind energy applications at altitudes between 100 and 200 m was established for Germany for the period 1981 - 2010. This horizontally high-resolution (100 m x 100 m) and area-wide dataset considers in particular the influence of different surface types as well as the time of day and season on the wind field.
The TRY project has calculated different grids on 1 x 1 km for the period 1995 - 2012. They were calculated for air temperature, humidity, pressure, dew point, water vapour content, cloud cover, wind direction and wind speed, as well as for direct radiation, global radiation and long-wave outgoing radiation and are available in the following resolutions:
hourly | daily | monthly
From the phenological observations were calculated:
- Grid for about 50 phenological phases ► annual
- Begin of vegetation ► annual | multi-annual mean value
- End of vegetation ► annual | multi-annual mean value
4. Average values for the individual federal states and for Germany as a whole
The mean values for the individual federal states and for Germany as a whole are calculated from the grid fields for air temperature, precipitation and sunshine duration and are available for:
monthly | seasonal | annual
Climatological knowledge days are available in annual resolution:
Days with precipitation ≥10 mm | Days with precipitation ≥20 mm | Hot days | Summer days | Frost days | Ice days
5. Grid fields for Europe
In the grid fields for Europe a 5 x 5 km grid has been calculated for the period 2001 to 2010 for the air temperature at 2 m above ground (mean, max, min) and the wind speeds 10 m above ground and the resolutions are available for:
daily | monthly
Cloud cover derived from satellite data is provided in monthly resolution.
6. Regional reanalysis
Selected parameters of the regional reanalysis COSMO-REA6 are provided on https://opendata.dwd.de/climate_environment/REA/. The hourly fields cover Europe for the period 1995 - 2016, in 6 x 6 km resolution. The format is the original format of COSMO (DWD grib1 in rotated coordinates). The following parameters are provided: Air pressure (reduced and non-reduced) at the Earth's surface, precipitation, temperature (min, max, mean) and relative humidity, wind components U and V, wind peak, various radiation parameters (diffuse and direct), height of the boundary layer, integrated water vapour column, cloud cover, depending on the parameters for the lowest 6 model levels, or at 10 m (wind) or 2 m (temperature) above the model ground.
7. Global climate station data
In the global climate station data, the historical and current monthly station data are made available as quality-checked CLIMAT messages, such as air temperature (mean, max, min), precipitation height, number of precipitation days, sunshine duration, air pressure, vapour pressure, as well as the long-term averages derived from them. They also contain - with a multitude of parameters - the monthly files of the worldwide CLIMAT messages checked for month/year information and format.
General information for all climate data:
For regularly versioned data you can choose between the two subdirectories "recent" and "historical". Under "recent" are current data which have not yet passed the routine quality control. For the data in the subdirectory "historical" the routine quality control is completed. The very latest 1-minute and 10-minute data can be found in the "now" subdirectories.
Routine quality control ensures that errors in the archived data that are detected at a later date are also corrected. In addition, the time series are constantly being expanded through the digitization of historical recordings. Therefore, our archived climate data are versioned. In the CDC-OpenData section the last valid version is provided under "historical", in approximately annual intervals.
The time series may possibly contain inhomogeneities (e.g. due to station relocation or change of measuring equipment). Users are therefore strongly advised to use the station metadata to find out the causes of possible inhomogeneities and to read the attached data set descriptions.
Please note that not all meteorological parameters are offered in all temporal resolutions and that the dates of data publication may differ.
Contact:
Climate and Environment
Customer Relations Management
Phone: + 49 (0)69 8062 4400
Fax: + 49 (0)69 8062 4499
mailto: klima.vertrieb@dwd.de