NOAA ThreadEx Long-term Station Extremes for America
ThreadEx is a data set of extreme daily temperature and precipitation values for 270 locations in the United States. For each day of the year at each station, ThreadEx provides the top 3 record high and low daily maximum temperatures, the top 3 record high and low daily minimum temperatures, the top 3 daily precipitation totals, along with the years the records were set for the date. Many of the time series are available back to the 1800s AD. This archive was developed for the express purpose of conveying general climate perspectives information. It is not appropriate for climate research.
Key Strengths
Stitches together data from multiple sources to create long time series of extreme temperatures and precipitation amounts for each day of the year
Key Limitations
Limited online documentation (more to be added here when available)
The 'threading' of data from nearby stations along with no adjustments for changing location and instrumentation makes it unsuitable for investigations of long-term trends and variiability
Cite this page
Acknowledgement of any material taken from or knowledge gained from this page is appreciated:
National Center for Atmospheric Research Staff (Eds). Last modified "The Climate Data Guide: NOAA ThreadEx Long-term Station Extremes for America.” Retrieved from https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/noaa-threadex-long-term-station-extremes-america on 2026-04-12.
Citation of datasets is separate and should be done according to the data providers' instructions. If known to us, data citation instructions are given in the Data Access section, above.
Acknowledgement of the Climate Data Guide project is also appreciated:
Schneider, D. P., C. Deser, J. Fasullo, and K. E. Trenberth, 2013: Climate Data Guide Spurs Discovery and Understanding. Eos Trans. AGU, 94, 121–122, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013eo130001
Key Figures
ThreadEx extreme daily temperature and precipitation values for Milton, MA for 1893-2011. (TMAXHI->Highest maximum temperature; TMAXLO->Lowest maximum temperature; TMINHI->Highest minimum temperature; TMINLO->Lowest minimum temperature; PRCPHI - Highest precipitation). (Climate Data Guide; D. Shea)