read.DWDdata {vegperiod}R Documentation

Fetch meteo data of DWD weather stations

Description

Fetch observed meteorological data of German weather stations from freely accessible part of the Climate Data Center of Germany's National Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD).

Usage

read.DWDdata(
  id,
  type = "climate",
  period = "recent",
  resolution = "daily",
  file = NULL,
  destdir = NULL,
  quiet = FALSE
)

Arguments

id

integer. A valid station id (cf. read.DWDstations).

type

string. Stations can be of type ‘⁠"climate"⁠’ offering a range of meteorological parameters or of type ‘⁠"precipitation"⁠’ solely recording rainfall. There are about 400 ‘⁠climate⁠’ and 2000 ‘⁠precipitation⁠’ stations.

period

string specifying a time span. The last 1.5 years are called ‘⁠"recent"⁠’. Data from the individual beginning of measurements up to a year ago are labelled ‘⁠"historical"⁠’. ‘⁠"recent"⁠’ data have not yet gone through the full quality control procedure. ‘⁠"historical"⁠’ data have completed the operational quality control. But be aware there still might be gaps and inhomogeneities.

resolution

string. Temporal resolution of the data can be ‘⁠"daily"⁠’ or ‘⁠"monthly"⁠’. ‘⁠"daily"⁠’ being the common resolution.

file

a string specifying the location of a dataset. ‘⁠"file"⁠’ may point to a file on a FTP server or on the local file system. If the file lives on a FTP server the string must start with 'ftp://'. If it is NULL (the default), data will be downloaded from DWD's FTP server.

destdir

directory (string) where intermediate data (downloaded *.zip file) are stored. If it is NULL (the default) a subdirectory ‘⁠downloaded_packages⁠’ of the session temporary directory will be used (and the files will be deleted at the end of the session). It might be advisable to keep the .zip file since it contains the stations documentation and metadata (e.g. station shift, used devices, downtimes etc.).

quiet

If TRUE, suppress status messages (if any), and the progress bar.

Details

An introduction to the data available at the Climate Data Center can be found in the German Liesmich_intro_CDC_ftp or the translated Readme_intro_CDC_ftp.

The freely accessible part of the Climate Data Center of Germany's National Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD) is part of the DWD's mandate for basic supply of information (termed "Grundversorgung"). These services may be used without any restrictions (no fees will be charged and in general there are no restrictions for the use the data), provided that the source is indicated as laid down in the "GeoNutzV" ordinance. The source reference shall roughly meet the following rules:

A more detailed description of the rules can be found in the official and legally binding German Nutzungsbedingungen or the translated Terms of use.

Value

A data.frame with the observed weather data. Beware of gaps and inhomogeneities! ‘⁠colnames⁠’ contains the original header and hence German terms.

Content of 'climate'-data.frame:

Name Description
STATIONS_ID station id
MESS_DATUM date
QN_3 quality level of next columns (-)
FX daily maximum of wind gust (m/s)
FM daily mean of wind velocity (m/s)
QN_4 quality level of next columns (-)
RSK daily precipitation height (mm)
RSKF precipitation form (-)
SDK daily sunshine duration (h)
SHK_TAG daily snow depth (cm)
NM daily mean of cloud cover (1/8)
VPM daily mean of vapor pressure (hPa)
PM daily mean of pressure (hPa)
TMK daily mean of temperature (°C)
UPM daily mean of relative humidity (%)
TXK daily maximum of temperature at 2m height (°C)
TNK daily minimum of temperature at 2m height (°C)
TGK daily minimum of air temperature at 5cm above ground (°C)

Content of 'precipitation'-data.frame:

Name Description
STATIONS_ID station id
MESS_DATUM date
QN_6 quality level of next columns (-)
RS daily precipitation height (mm)
RSF precipitation form (-)
SH_TAG daily height of snow pack (cm)

References

Freely accessible DWD data available via the Climate Data Center.

Examples

## Not run: 
# fetch last 500 days worth of data from station Göttingen
clim <- read.DWDdata(id=1691)

# save data & metadata (documentation about devices, downtimes etc.)
clim <- read.DWDdata(id=1691, destdir='.')

# find and download historical data from the Brocken
stat.hist <- read.DWDstations(period='historical')
brocken.id <- stat.hist[grep("^Brock", stat.hist$name), ]$id
clim.brocken <- read.DWDdata(id=brocken.id, period='historical')

## End(Not run)


[Package vegperiod version 0.4.0 Index]