In article ,
Norman writes:
Anyone who has a few months of spare time available might get a bit of
enjoyment browsing through the following site:

http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/data_rescue_home.html

There's all sorts of fascintaing stuff there. In particular, the link
to German data contains scanned Daily Weather Reports from 1896 to
1975. The maps in them extend to the British Isles.

Beware, though, the files are VERY large. Because of this, use of the
site is practical only with a fast broadband connection.

One has to congratulate NOAA for doing this. To acquire so much data and
put it into machine-readable form must have taken an enormous amount of
effort, and thus have cost a considerable amount of money. And they have
made the data freely available to anyone who wants it, with no charge.
Sadly, one can't imagine our own Met Office doing anything like this. I
suspect that the NOAA archive doesn't include any UK data because the
Met Office wouldn't make it freely available.
--
John Hall
"Honest criticism is hard to take,
particularly from a relative, a friend,
an acquaintance, or a stranger." Franklin P Jones