What is the difference between current, historical, and climatological data?
Current data refers to the latest available observational data, typically from the last hour. Historical data refers to observations from the past. Climatological data is the result of performing some statistical operation on a given time period (history) of observations. That climatological time period can be as short as one day, such as the mean, maximum and minimum temperature for a given day or it can be as long as several decades, such as a 50-year average rainfall amounts. Climatological data is typically a report of the average weather conditions (temperatures, precipitation, wind speed, etc…) that occurred in a given location ocer the past 30 years.
