PRISM

Spatial climate products (digital maps) are available through the links below. These products were developed through a partnership between the NRCS National Water and Climate Center (NWCC) and the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University (OSU), developers of PRISM (the Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model). Click to view map This partnership has resulted in the production of the best and, in many cases, the first high-spatial-resolution climate map products for the United States. PRISM is an analytical tool that uses point data, a digital elevation model, and other spatial data sets to generate gridded estimates of monthly, yearly, and event-based climatic parameters, such as precipitation, temperature, snowfall, degree days, and dew point. All products now available have been thoroughly scrutinized, having passed a strenuous peer-review process in cooperation with state and regional climatologists across the nation. The goal is to deliver the highest quality and most accurate climate maps of the U.S. ever produced.

• Cartographic-Quality Maps

  Cartographic-quality maps of mean annual precipitation for each of the 48 contiguous U.S. states
  NRCS Data Gateway
  

Go to these sites for more information, including full documentation and metadata, regarding PRISM climate map products developed by the NACSE at OSU, in conjunction with the NRCS-NWCC:

• Climate Mapping with PRISM Site at the Prism Group, Oregon State University. This is the home of the PRISM modeling system, and there are many other coverages now available (for a cost).
• The Climate Atlas of the United States has been released on CD-ROM by the NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. Go to this site to order this CD (for a cost). Contains hundreds of GIS-compatible climate maps for viewing, including many created using the PRISM system.

Other, related links (now or soon using PRISM climate map products):

• The National Atlas (USGS)
• NRCS VegSpec Vegetation Designer