| Title: | Access Canadian Historical Climate Data |
| Version: | 0.1.1 |
| Description: | Provides easy access to historical climate data in Canada from R. Search for weather stations and download raw hourly, daily or monthly weather data across Canada from 1840 to present. Implements public API access as detailed at https://climate.weather.gc.ca. |
| License: | GPL (≥ 3) |
| Encoding: | UTF-8 |
| RoxygenNote: | 7.3.2 |
| Imports: | magrittr, readr, dplyr, tibble, stringr, rlang, progress |
| Depends: | R (≥ 3.5) |
| Suggests: | testthat (≥ 3.0.0) |
| Config/testthat/edition: | 3 |
| NeedsCompilation: | no |
| Packaged: | 2025-07-23 17:59:08 UTC; dan |
| Author: | Dan Prisk  [aut,
cre, cph] |
| Maintainer: | Dan Prisk <dan@prisk.ca> |
| Repository: | CRAN |
| Date/Publication: | 2025-07-25 10:10:09 UTC |
chcd: Access Canadian Historical Climate Data
Description
Provides easy access to historical climate data in Canada from R. Search for weather stations and download raw hourly, daily or monthly weather data across Canada from 1840 to present. Implements public API access as detailed at https://climate.weather.gc.ca.
Author(s)
Maintainer: Dan Prisk dan@prisk.ca (ORCID) [copyright holder]
Build a valid URL for downloading a file from CHCD. Follows the format detailed here https://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/climate/Get_More_Data_Plus_de_donnees/.
Description
Build a valid URL for downloading a file from CHCD. Follows the format detailed here https://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/climate/Get_More_Data_Plus_de_donnees/.
Usage
build_url(station_id, timecode, year, month = NA)
Arguments
station_id |
The ID of the station to be downloaded |
timecode |
The numeric timecode to be downloaded |
year |
The year of data to be loaded |
month |
The month of the year to download data. Setting to NA gets all months. |
Value
A URL string
Examples
build_url(337,3,1980)
# The timecode can also be a string such as "m" or "month"
build_url(337,"m",1990)
# Setting the month is most useful when downloading hourly data
build_url(337,"h",1980,3)
Downloads a csv from the internet
Description
Downloads a csv from the internet
Usage
dl_csv(url)
Arguments
url |
A string containing the URL of the CSV to download |
Value
The content of the downloaded CSV
Get historical climate data for the specified time and place. The data returned will be raw data as originally reported. As many weather stations historically use manual entry to report this data this is likely to mean that data cleaning will be required for sensible usage.
Description
Get historical climate data for the specified time and place. The data returned will be raw data as originally reported. As many weather stations historically use manual entry to report this data this is likely to mean that data cleaning will be required for sensible usage.
Usage
get_climatedata(place, years, interval, progress = TRUE)
Arguments
place |
The place that data should be downloaded for. This can be a climate station ID, or a text place name. Can take a list of place names. |
years |
The year, or years, to get data for. Can be either a single numeric year or a list of years. All years must be between 1840 and present. |
interval |
The interval that data should be returned for. Must be one of: "h", "hourly", "d", "daily", "m", "monthly". Defaults to monthly. |
progress |
Defines if a progress bar is shown. Can be TRUE or FALSE. Defaults to TRUE. |
Value
A single tibble containing all the requested data
Examples
# These will return climate data for all stations that include the place string in their name.
get_climatedata("squamish",1980,"monthly")
get_climatedata("toronto",1980,"daily")
# In order to get a specific station you can use its station id (see chcd::get_station())
get_climatedata(337, 1980, "m")
# Can also support lists of places and years
get_climatedata("squamish", c(1980:1985), "m")
get_climatedata(c("squamish","whistler"), 1990, "m")
get_climatedata(c(337,338,339), c(1974:1975), "daily")
Find climate station or stations from a given place. This also confirms if a given climate station ID is valid.
Description
Find climate station or stations from a given place. This also confirms if a given climate station ID is valid.
Usage
get_station(place)
Arguments
place |
Either a numeric station ID or a place name. Case insensitive. |
Value
Returns a tibble containing id, name, and location for all valid stations corresponding to place. Or NA if none are found.
Examples
get_station("squamish")
get_station("SqUaMiSh")
get_station(337)
Converts a text based interval into a CHCD timecode
Description
Converts a text based interval into a CHCD timecode
Usage
get_timecode(interval)
Arguments
interval |
A text based interval. Must be one of: "h", "hourly", "d", "daily", or "m", "monthly". |
Value
A numeric code that can be used in a CHCD URL
Finds climate stations near to a given location.
Description
Finds climate stations near to a given location.
Usage
stations_near(longitude, latitude, distance)
Arguments
longitude |
The longitude of the point |
latitude |
The latitude of the point |
distance |
The distance in KM from the point to pull in stations |
Value
A tibble containing the id, name, and locations for all valid stations within the radius of distance from point.
Given a file and a list of expected columns this will test to make sure our data looks good. Returns TRUE if all expected columns are present in the file, otherwise returns FALSE.
Description
Given a file and a list of expected columns this will test to make sure our data looks good. Returns TRUE if all expected columns are present in the file, otherwise returns FALSE.
Usage
test_climatefile(file)
Arguments
file |
A file downloaded from CHCD for testing |
Value
TRUE if file contains expected columns, FALSE otherwise.