Climate precipitation stations - Homogeneous data series
Precipitation is an important meteorological parameter with high spatial variability. For this reason, a denser measurement network is operated in comparison with other variables. The first precipitation stations started operating in Switzerland in the second half of the 19th century. Today, 46 stations belong to the Swiss National Basic Climatological Network "Swiss NBCN" and supplement its climate stations.
The measuring conditions under which meteorological data are collected may change over time. Statements about the past, long-time climatic development can only be made if the influence of such changes is removed. This is achieved by homogenisation of the data.
The data series of the Swiss NBCN precipitation stations were homogenized and date back, in some cases, to the mid-nineteenth century.
Data download
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Download data automatically
Download files per station automatically via FSDI's REST API: https://data.geo.admin.ch/api/stac/v1/collections/ch.meteoschweiz.ogd-nbcn-precip
Read our information on how you can obtain data automatically.
The STAC Browser can be a useful tool to facilitate the use of the API: https://data.geo.admin.ch/browser/index.html#/collections/ch.meteoschweiz.ogd-nbcn-precip
Download data manually
Select and download files per station manually via MeteoSwiss' Open Data Explorer.
Data structure
- Files per station
The data is split by measuring station. A file for a station contains all available parameters in one file. There are files with monthly m and yearly y values.
We strongly recommend that you download the corresponding aggregated data granularity.
Depending on the granularity there are files with update frequency recent and historical.
See e.g. files for station Eschenz (ESZ) with all granularities and update frequencies mentioned: ogd-nbcn-precip_esz_(data granularity)_(update frequency).csv
Data format
CSV with an estimated volume of ≤0.9 MB [to be verified] per file.
Metadata
- Parameter
- Stations
- Data inventory
All parameters have a unique identifier that depends on the time resolution.
ogd-nbcn-precip_meta_parameters.csv provides a list of all parameter identifiers with explanation, time interval, decimal places, data type and unit of measurement.
All stations have a three-letter identifier (e.g. BER for "Bern/Zollikofen" or LUG for "Lugano").
ogd-nbcn-precip_meta_stations.csv provides a list of all station identifiers with name, Canton, Wigos ID, station type, altitude, coordinates, orientation and URL of the station details pages.
ogd-nbcn-precip_meta_datainventory.csv provides a list of all stations and parameters with start and end date of the measurements.
Data usage
See e.g. MeteoSwiss' Swiss NBCN network map.
Learn more about MeteoSwiss' climate analyses and expertise, and through our blog articles, category ‘Climate’ (in German, French and Italian).