NOAA has an excellent website for monitoring global and U.S. conditions at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-monitoring/index.php This site gives an overview of temperatures, precipitation, global hazards, tornadoes, wildfires, droughts, and other conditions for each month. The monthly reports are typically posted about a week or so after the end of the month. You can choose from the archive of past months/years as well.
Here is a screen shot of one of the many products available. This one is called the “U.S. Climate at a Glance” product. With this particular product you can generate national, regional, statewide maps as well as plots for key cities. Give it a try.
Jim, very nice site and a great link to NOAA. I have used the site to look at data and create graphs on temperature trends and water vapor trends. I’m still working on capturing the graphs via tinypic for posting puposes. Speaking of graphs, I was wondering when you will update the temperature and rainfall charts on the Illinois web site to include 2009. I’m anticipating a downward adjustment in the 11 year smoothing line as 1998 is removed and replaced with the cold 2009 temperatures.
Thanks for the positive feedback. Regarding the 2009 data, that’s a good point. I usually wait a few months after the end of the year so that the National Climatic Data Center has time to come up with it’s “final” numbers. They should be in by now. I’ll check.