Where can I find NOAA KLAX climate data and reports?

Find official KLAX climate data through NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), searching for KLAX, WBAN 23174 or GHCN station USW00023174. Use Local Climatological Data for monthly reports, Daily Summaries for daily historical climate data, Global Hourly/ISD for hourly observations, and U.S. Climate Normals for 30-year normals.

For Aviation & Real-World Flying research, choose the product by time resolution and purpose. A climate normal describes a reference period; it is not an observation, forecast or weather record.

Which official KLAX NOAA climate source should you use?

Use Daily Summaries for a KLAX time series, Global Hourly for weather at a particular hour, and Local Climatological Data or CLMLAX for formatted monthly reports.

Use the NOAA products for historical analysis. For operational weather, our guide to checking live KLAX METARs, TAFs, ATIS and forecasts explains what each report contributes.

KLAX NOAA time series and historical climate data

The most practical source for a daily KLAX temperature or precipitation time series is NOAA Daily Summaries for station USW00023174.

1. Open the Daily Summaries search. In NOAA Climate Data Online, select the Daily Summaries dataset and choose a station-based search.
2. Set the complete date range. Use whole calendar months or years if the result will be aggregated. Partial opening or closing months can otherwise look unusually dry or cool.
3. Select the LAX station. Search for USW00023174, GHCND:USW00023174 or Los Angeles International Airport. Confirm that the result identifies the airport rather than Downtown Los Angeles, Hawthorne or Santa Monica.
4. Choose the required fields. Select TMAX, TMIN, TAVG where available, and PRCP. Include measurement, quality and source attributes rather than downloading only the displayed numbers.
5. Choose units and format. Record whether the export uses standard or metric units, then download the data in a machine-readable format such as CSV.
6. Check completeness before calculating. Look for absent dates, blank values and quality flags. Do not replace them automatically with zero.
7. Save the metadata. Keep the product name, station identifier, date range, units, download date and NOAA station-history information with the resulting time series.

Station verification is essential around Los Angeles. Coastal exposure and the marine layer can make LAX markedly cooler than inland or downtown stations; our KLAX coastal-weather and airport overview provides the local context.

How do you build a daily, monthly or annual KLAX time series?

Keep the downloaded daily observations as the base series, then create monthly or annual results only after checking flags and missing days.

• Daily temperature: use NOAA’s reported TAVG when present. If it is absent, (TMAX + TMIN) / 2 may be used only when both values exist; label that result as a derived daily mean.
• Daily precipitation: use PRCP together with its attributes. A blank value is missing, not dry weather.
• Monthly temperature: average valid daily means and report the number of valid days. Do not mix reported TAVG values with a different averaging method without documenting it.
• Monthly precipitation: sum valid daily precipitation, preserve any trace notation and flag the month as incomplete if observations are missing.
• Annual values: aggregate only complete daily or monthly periods. State any completeness threshold rather than silently accepting a year with gaps.

Calculate using unrounded source values and round only the reported result. A displayed no change after rounding does not mean the underlying daily observations were identical.

How should trace precipitation and missing values be handled?

A trace means precipitation occurred but the amount was below the product’s measurable threshold. Formatted reports commonly show it as T; machine-readable data may retain a numeric zero alongside a trace measurement flag. Preserve that flag because trace precipitation is not the same as no precipitation.

A missing value means NOAA has no usable value for that field and period. It must not be converted to zero, just as a missing wind observation must not be interpreted as calm. Fixed-width, CSV and formatted reports can encode missing and trace values differently, so read the accompanying field definitions.

Los Angeles International Airport July precipitation: normals, daily rainfall and records

NOAA’s 1991–2020 monthly normal for station USW00023174 lists July precipitation at Los Angeles International Airport as 0.02 inches, about 0.5 mm. That small normal must not be confused with a particular July’s total, a daily observation or a rainfall record.

The phrase “July rainfall record” is incomplete on its own. It might mean the wettest complete July, the greatest calendar-day amount anywhere in July, the record for a specific date such as 15 July, or the greatest 24-hour total crossing two calendar dates.

Every quoted value should include the station, product, report period and observation-day convention. For example, cite 1–31 July YYYY and state whether the source uses the climate day defined by the NOAA or NWS report, or a UTC interval reconstructed from hourly observations. KLAX METAR timestamps are in UTC, while climate products can assign precipitation using a local standard-time climate day; a late-evening shower may therefore appear under different dates.

A record is also only a period-of-record record. Cite the record period shown by the source rather than describing a value as all-time without qualification. If the NWS report has been corrected, use the corrected issue and record its issuance date.

How can these records be used in a flight simulator?

Use normals to create plausible seasonal weather and hourly observations to recreate a dated flight. A July normal of 0.02 inches says that July is usually very dry; it does not prove that every July day was rain-free.

• Use Global Hourly or archived aviation observations for wind, visibility, ceiling and temperature at the simulated departure time.
• Use monthly normals when building representative coastal summer or winter conditions without targeting a specific date.
• Compare historical wind with the runway headings on our KLAX approach plates and runway charts, but do not infer the active runway configuration from climate averages alone.
• Keep the weather time basis consistent with the simulator date and time. Convert UTC and local time explicitly, including daylight-saving rules for the historical date.

KLAX NOAA climate data FAQ

What is the correct KLAX NOAA station?

The principal airport climate station is Los Angeles International Airport: ICAO KLAX, WBAN 23174 and GHCN identifier USW00023174. Daily Summaries may display it as GHCND:USW00023174. Confirm the station name and coordinates because nearby Los Angeles stations are not interchangeable.

Can NOAA data show hourly KLAX weather?

Yes. Select NCEI Global Hourly, which provides ISD-based surface observations for KLAX. It can include hourly and special observations, so expect irregular intervals rather than exactly one row per clock hour. Preserve UTC timestamps, quality flags and missing fields.

Why does a KLAX rainfall total differ between sources?

Common causes are different day boundaries, preliminary versus corrected data, trace handling, missing observations, rounding, units or use of a nearby station. Totals reconstructed from METARs can also be wrong because precipitation groups may cover overlapping one-, three-, six- or 24-hour periods; never add overlapping accumulation fields.

How do I tell whether a reported value is a normal, a record or an observation?

A normal is a statistic for a named reference period such as 1991–2020. A record is the highest or lowest qualifying value within a stated station record period. An observation is what was measured on a specified date or during a specified interval. The source label, period and field name should make that distinction explicit.