Fetching Historical Observations from ACIS (Using either curl or Python)

fetch_station.py

import argparse
import json
import re
import sys
import urllib2

# Parse the command-line arguments
argparser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
argparser.add_argument('date_start', help='Start Date')
argparser.add_argument('date_end', help='End Date')
argparser.add_argument('station')

args = argparser.parse_args()

# Validate the start date
if args.date_start != 'por':
    if not re.search(r'\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}', args.date_start):
        sys.exit('Invalid start date: %s' % args.date_start)

# Validate the end date
if args.date_end != 'por':
    if not re.search(r'\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}', args.date_end):
        sys.exit('Invalid end date: %s' % args.date_end)

# Create the request body
params = {
    'sid': args.station,
    'sdate': args.date_start,
    'edate': args.date_end,
    'output': 'csv',
    'elems': [
        {'name': 'maxt', 'add': 't'},
        {'name': 'mint', 'add': 't'},
        {'name': 'avgt', 'add': 't'},
        {'name': 'pcpn', 'add': 't'},
        {'name': 'snow', 'add': 't'},
        {'name': 'snwd', 'add': 't'},
        {'name': 'hdd',  'add': 't'},
        {'name': 'cdd',  'add': 't'},
    ]
}

url = 'http://data.rcc-acis.org/StnData'
body = {'params': json.dumps(params)}
request = urllib2.urlopen(url, data=body)
response = request.read()

print response

fetch_station.sh

curl 'http://data.rcc-acis.org/StnData' \
  --data 'params={"sid":"denthr","sdate":"por","edate":"por","elems":"maxt,mint,avgt,pcpn,snow,snwd,hdd,cdd","output":"csv"}' \
  > denthr.csv
  

sample_output.csv

threadex_stations.geojson

This is the raw data behind the NOAA "NowData" project.

The web services are documented here You can also use this query builder to figure out how it all works.

I'm not sure if it's documented, but por is the shorthand for period of record and gets you the data going as far back as it exists for a station.