README for Alternate Climate Division Data
Becky Bolinger, March 2023

The data contained in these directories are from NOAA NCEI's nClimGrid dataset. Precipitation and temperature data are averaged over each alternate climate division for every month, every year, back to 1895.

Alternate climate divisions were developed by Russ Schumacher using the methods outlined but Wolter and Allured, 2007. There are 11 alternate climate divisions over Colorado, not to be confused with the 5 official climate divisions defined by NOAA NCEI.

Alternate climate division data can be found here:
https://climate.colostate.edu/co_cag/data/alt_division/

See main directory for a map of the climate divisions.

Alternate Climate Divisions:
0501 - Pikes Peak
0502 - Southeast
0503 - Northern Front Range
0504 - Northeast
0505 - South Park
0506 - San Luis Valley & Sangre de Cristos
0507 - Southwest
0508 - Mesas & Valleys
0509 - Northwest
0510 - Northern Mountains
0511 - Central Mountains

Each directory in the main directory points to a climate division from the list. Once inside a climate division directory, there are 4 directories for monthly precipitation, average temperature, maximum temperature, and minimum temperature (prcp, tavg, tmax, tmin). Each of those directories have 145 files.

The naming convention for files is:

"DIV-var-timescale-month-1895-2022.csv"

DIV = climate division number 0501 - 0511

var = variables
	prcp: monthly total precipitation (inches)
	tavg: monthly averaged temperature (°F)
	tmax: monthly average of all maximum temperatures (°F)
	tmin: monthly average of all minimum temperatures (°F)

timescale = number of months in the analysis. 1 is for a monthly analysis. 2 is for a 2-month average (or sum for precipitation).

month - ending month of the analysis. 1 is for January to 12 for December. 

1895-2022 - this denotes the beginning year and ending year in the analysis.

.csv - this is a comma-delimited file.

Examples:

0501-prcp-6-08-1895-2022.csv: This file contains 6-month total precipitation for every March-August period from 1895 through 2022 for the Pikes Peak climate division.

0503-tavg-3-11-1895-2022.csv: This file contains 3-month averaged temperature for every September-November period from 1895 through 2022 for the Northern Front Range climate division.

Questions about this dataset should be directed to Becky.Bolinger@colostate.edu