The Southern Great Plains 1997 (SGP97) Hydrology Experiment originated from an interdisciplinary investigation, "Soil Moisture Mapping at Satellite Temporal and Spatial Scales" (PI: Thomas J. Jackson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD) selected under the NASA Research Announcement 95-MTPE-03. The region selected for investigation is the best instrumented site for surface soil moisture, hydrology and meteorology in the world. This includes the USDA/ARS Little Washita Watershed, the USDA/ARS facility at El Reno, Oklahoma, the ARM/CART central facility, as well as the Oklahoma Mesonet. The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Summary of the Day Co-operative Dataset is one of several surface datasets provided for the Southern Great Plains (SGP) 1997 project. This NCDC Co-operative Observer (COOP) dataset contains data from sixty-two stations for the SGP 1997 time period (18 June 1997 through 18 July 1997) and in the SGP 1997 domain (approximately 97W to 99W longitude and 34.5N to 37N latitude). The primary thrust of the cooperative observing program is the recording of 24-hour precipitation amounts, but approximately 55% of the stations also record maximum and minimum temperatures. The observations are for the 24-hour period ending at the time of observation. Observer convenience or special program needs mean that observing times vary from station to station. However, the vast majority of observations are taken near either 7:00 AM or 7:00 PM local time. The NCDC Summary of the Day Co-operative Dataset (TD-3200) contains eight metadata parameters and fifteen data parameters and flags. The metadata parameters describe the date/time, network, station and location at which the data were collected. All times are UTC. Data values are valid for the 24 hours preceding the time of observation.

• Resource Title: GeoData catalog record.

  File Name: Web Page, url: https://geodata.nal.usda.gov/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/SGP97COOP_jjm_2015-05-04_0918