Idaho Climate Services

Climate services

Idaho Climate Services connects you with present and historical climate and weather data, near-term weather outlooks and general climate information for Idaho. Learn more about our tools and resources to help you make climate-related decisions.

Climate is the long-term average of weather, typically averaged over a period of 30 years. More rigorously, it denotes the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years.

Idaho Climate Services is a resource of timely and authoritative scientific data and information about climate. Our goal is to promote public understanding of climate science and climate-related events, and to provide a service to Idahoans to make climate-related decisions with tools and resources that help them answer specific questions.

The Idaho Climate Services is recognized by the American Association of State Climatologists as Idaho State Climate Services. Established in the 1970’s.

• Current weather

• Become a volunteer

• National Weather Service Alerts

Related resources

Historical climate data for Idaho

• Access historical climate data from land-based weather stations in Idaho through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
• Climate normal (30-year averages of temperature and precipitation) calculated by NCEI.

Drought

• The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) provides maps of current drought conditions, forecasts and other drought information for Idaho and the U.S. Idaho Climate Service partners with Idaho agencies to assess evolving drought conditions and demarcate drought severity boundaries for the USDM maps.

Mountain snow

• Most of the water found in Idaho’s rivers, streams, lakes and even groundwater originates as winter snowpack in the mountains. Spring and summer snowmelt delivers runoff to rivers where it provides recreation, irrigation, environmental flows, municipal and industrial supplies, and a myriad of other uses.
• Maps of real-time mountain snow observations from the Snow Telemetry Network operated by the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service.

Streamflow and water supply

• Access data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Hydromet network of Hydrologic and Meteorologic monitoring stations throughout the Pacific Northwest.
• Access U.S. Geological Survey Streamflow data for Idaho.

Evaporation

• Evaporation affects the amount of irrigation water needed to grow crops. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s AgriMet network collects weather data and calculates evaporation at a network of stations across Idaho and the western U.S.