The Western Regional Climate Center, inaugurated in 1986, is one of six regional climate centers in the United States. The regional climate center program is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Specific oversight is provided by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS).

The mission of the Western Regional Climate Center is to disseminate high quality climate data and information pertaining to the western United States; foster better use of this information in decision-making; conduct applied research related to climate issues; and improve the coordination of climate-related activities at state, regional and national scales.

Climate data includes

• Daily climate observations for digital period of record (6,781 stations, about 2,608 now active)
• Summarized monthly climate data (5,240 stations)
• Hourly precipitation data (1,937 stations)
• Twice-daily upper air soundings (about 50 stations)
• Surface airways hourly observations (over 1,800 stations nationwide)
• Remote Automatic Weather Station (RAWS)
• Historic lightning data (ALDS) thru 1996
• Access to Natural Resources Conservation Service SNOTEL and other western databases
• 3,000 climate stations on the web for the western states