dataset · USA
GRIDMET: University of Idaho Gridded Surface Meteorological Dataset
The Gridded Surface Meteorological dataset provides high spatial resolution (~4-km) daily surface fields of temperature, precipitation, winds, humidity and radiation across the contiguous United States from 1979. The dataset blends the high resolution spatial data from PRISM with the high temporal resolution data from the National Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) to produce spatially and temporally continuous fields that lend themselves to additional land surface modeling. This dataset cont
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Licence: proprietary
Evidence quality: 47.2
Listed in gee public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z
What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- daily precipitation (pr) · daily maximum and minimum temperature (tmmx, tmmn) · daily maximum and minimum relative humidity (rmax, rmin) · specific humidity (sph) · surface downward shortwave radiation (srad) · wind speed at 10 m (vs) and wind direction (th) · mean vapour pressure deficit (vpd) · daily grass and alfalfa reference evapotranspiration (eto, etr) · NFDRS fire danger indices: energy release component (erc), burning index (bi) · 100-hour and 1000-hour dead fuel moisture (fm100, fm1000)
- Coverage docs-verified
- contiguous United States · 1979 to near present
- Resolution docs-verified
- ~4 km spatial (4638.3 m pixel size, all bands); daily temporal
- Update frequency docs-verified
- Daily (cadence 1 day); provisional values progress from 'early' to 'provisional' to 'permanent' (final after about 2 months)
- Formats docs-verified
- Earth Engine ImageCollection
- Access docs-verified
- Google Earth Engine account required; free for research, education and nonprofit use (docs do not state terms for business use). Underlying METDATA data is stated as public domain in the docs, which conflicts with the entry's 'proprietary' licence field.
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Historical daily temperature and precipitation baseline for US project sites · Reference evapotranspiration (eto/etr) inputs for water balance or irrigation demand estimates on US projects · Fire danger and fuel moisture screening (NFDRS indices, dead fuel moisture) for wildfire risk in environmental assessments · Daily wind and humidity inputs for land surface or ecological modelling on US sites
- Audience llm-inferred
- hydrologists · environmental consultants · ecologists · GIS analysts · climate and fire-risk analysts
Limitations
- Constraints llm-inferred
- Contiguous United States only; no UK coverage · Requires a Google Earth Engine account and registration · Recent data is provisional ('early' or 'provisional') and is replaced by 'permanent' assets after about 2 months · Commercial consultancy use terms are not stated in the docs · Licence conflict: entry says 'proprietary' but docs say the METDATA work is public domain · Some band min/max values are estimated and marked with * in the docs
Evidence
- ee.ImageCollection('IDAHO_EPSCOR/GRIDMET')
- https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/IDAHO_EPSCOR_GRIDMET
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.