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NOAA ATLAS 2

"Note:  Effective August 6, 2003, NOAA Atlas 2 has been superceded by NOAA Atlas 14 for Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and southeastern California.  Visit the Precipitation Frequency Data Server for more information."

Welcome to the Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center web page for NOAA Atlas 2, the Precipitaiton-Frequency Atlas of the Western United States, 1973. This web page provides access to high-resolution (15-sec) NOAA Atlas 2 GIS rasters (grids) for 7 states in the western U.S..

To view scanned versions of NOAA Atlas 2, please visit the current PF publications page.
  • The GIS rasters can either be retrieved via HTTP (web browser) or anonymous FTP.
  • Please read the metadata and disclaimer before making any use of these datasets.
  • To obtain the precipitation frequency estimates for 2-yr 6-hr, 2-yr 24-hr, 100-yr 6-hr, and 100-yr 24-hr at a given point, enter the longitude (as a negative number) and latitude in decimal degrees here: (enter 45° 30' 00'' as 45.500)
    Latitude: Longitude:
  • To order a hardcopy version of NOAA Atlas 2 for a specific state, please visit our precipitation frequency ordering information page.
  • To view a complete set of scanned images of maps from NOAA Atlas 2, visit the *Western Regional Climate Center.
  • These spatial data sets are provided in an ArcInfo ASCII grid format. This format is importable by ArcInfo (with asciigrid command), ArcView 3.x Spatial Analyst extension or ArcGIS 8.x (ArcToolbox function "ASCII to Grid"). If you don't have ArcInfo or ArcView Spatial Analyst, you can visit the *Geocommunity web page for list of free, fully functional raster-based GIS mapping and viewing software. NOTE: The links on this page are provided on this web page as a convenience to users and does not imply endorsement by or represent opinions of the U.S. Government.
  • For technical questions please contact Tye Parzybok at .
SEE METADATA exclamation point Metadata -- "data about data." A metadata file is available and may contain important information about this spatial data set. We strongly recommend that you read the metadata file before making any use of these datasets. (For information about metadata in general, click here ) .

HTTP Retrieval Information

Please remember that spatial data files typically are very big! A 28.8K modem, for example, takes about 10 minutes to download a 1 MByte file, even longer if there's network traffic. Plan accordingly. Downloading these files, which have a .gz suffix and a ftp:// prefix, will cause your browser to either spawn a SaveAs window or uncompress the file and display them. However, it is best to save the file rather than view it on your screen. See your browser's instructions on how to do this. You may use anonymous ftp to retrieve files that are too large to conveniently retrieve with a broswer, or to retrieve several or all files at once.

FTP Retrieval Information

Please remember that spatial data files typically are very big! A 28.8K modem, for example, takes about 10 minutes to download a 1 MByte file, even longer if there's network traffic. Plan accordingly. Clicking on files with a .gz suffix or ftp:// prefix will cause your browser to make an "ftp" retrieval. You will want to save this retrieval in a file rather than view it on your screen. See your browser's instructions on how to do this. You may use anonymous ftp to retrieve files that are too large to conveniently retrieve with a broswer, or if you to retrieve several or all files. Give the login name as anonymous and your email-address as the password. When transferring compressed files, remember to use the binary transfer method.

For example, to get na2_westus_100yr24hr.asc.gz and save it on your computer, you would need to do the following from a prompt. If using an FTP tool, you will use the same logic.

Action Type this
Open ftp to the server. ftp hdsc.nws.noaa.gov
Login as anonymous user. anonymous
Give the password, your email id. myemail@company.com
Switch to binary mode. bin
Change directory. cd pub/hdsc/data/westus/
Get the file. get na2_westus_100yr24hr.asc.gz
Optionally, get other files. (whatever)
Quit ftp. quit


NOAA Atlas 2 Domain

NOAA Atlas 2 Image



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Page last modified: October 18, 2004

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