National Neighborhood Data Archive (NaNDA): PRISM Climate of Census Tracts, United States, 1981-2024

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Carina Gronlund, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research; Philippa Clarke, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research; Lindsay Gypin, University of Michigan Institute for Social Resaerch

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
NaNDA_PRISM_by_Tract_1981-2024_v3.pdf application/pdf 345.9 KB 05/27/2025 11:58:AM
PRISM_daily_tract_1981-1990_csvs.zip application/zip 1.2 GB 05/23/2025 06:41:AM
PRISM_daily_tract_1991-2000_csvs.zip application/zip 1.3 GB 05/23/2025 06:01:AM
PRISM_daily_tract_2001-2010_csvs.zip application/zip 1.4 GB 05/23/2025 06:49:AM
PRISM_daily_tract_2011-2020_csvs.zip application/zip 1.7 GB 05/23/2025 07:14:AM
PRISM_daily_tract_2021-2024_csvs.zip application/zip 891.3 MB 05/23/2025 07:05:AM
nanda_PRISM_ppt_pctpctl_Tract_1991-2024_csvs.zip application/zip 31.3 MB 05/23/2025 11:42:AM
nanda_PRISM_tmax_pctpctl_Tract_1991-2024_csvs.zip application/zip 38.9 MB 05/27/2025 07:42:AM
nanda_PRISM_tmin_pctday_Tract_1991-2024_csvs.zip application/zip 38.1 MB 05/27/2025 11:20:AM

Project Citation: 

Gronlund, Carina, Clarke, Philippa, and Gypin, Lindsay. National Neighborhood Data Archive (NaNDA): PRISM Climate of Census Tracts, United States, 1981-2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-05-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/E230941V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary
The PRISM NaNDA dataset provides daily weather data—minimum temperature (tmin), maximum temperature (tmax), and precipitation (ppt)—for all census tracts in the contiguous United States (CONUS) from 1981 to 2024. These data are derived from Oregon State University’s PRISM Climate Group (Northwest Alliance for Computational Science & Engineering & Oregon State University, 2025), which produces high-resolution (4 km x 4 km) gridded climate estimates.
In addition to daily values, the dataset includes two types of annual tract-level summary measures:
  • Percentiles (0.5th, 1st, 5th, 95th, 99th, and 99.5th), calculated using a rolling 10-year window of historical data, available for tmin, tmax, and ppt. 
  • Percents, representing the proportion of days per year that fall above or below these percentile thresholds, available for tmin and tmax only.
These features enable robust analyses of long-term environmental trends, extreme weather events, and their potential impacts on population health.

Funding Sources:  View help for Funding Sources National Institutes of Health National Institute of Nursing Research (U01NR020556); National Institutes of Health National Institution on Minority Health and Health Disparities (U01NR020556)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms climate; weather data; weather; PRISM; temperature; precipitation; climate change
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1981 – 2024
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 2025 – 2025
Universe:  View help for Universe United States Census Tracts
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) aggregate data

Methodology

Data Source:  View help for Data Source This dataset draws on several high-quality data sources to generate tract-level weather measures for the contiguous United States. The primary source is daily climate data from the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University (Northwest Alliance for Computational Science & Engineering & Oregon State University, 2025). These data include daily minimum temperature (tmin), maximum temperature (tmax), and total daily precipitation (ppt), modeled on a 4x4 km grid from 1981 through 2024. PRISM data are widely used in environmental and health research due to their high spatial resolution and methodological rigor. To align these gridded climate estimates with neighborhood-level geographies, the dataset uses decennial U.S. Census Bureau tract boundaries from 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, accessed through TIGER/Line shapefiles using the tigris R package (R Core Team, 2025; Walker & Rudis, 2025). For processing efficiency, simplified boundaries (cb = TRUE) are used. These boundaries are appropriate for the relatively coarse resolution of the climate data. Each year of weather data is assigned to tracts based on the most appropriate set of census boundaries for that time period. Specifically:
  • 1990 tract boundaries are used for weather data from 1981–1989,
  • 2000 boundaries for 1990–1999,
  • 2010 boundaries for 2000–2009, and
  • 2020 boundaries for 2010–2024.
To more accurately assign PRISM grid cells to tracts, population-weighted centroids were obtained from the Missouri Census Data Center’s Geocorr tool (Missouri State Library, 2025). These centroids represent the weighted geographic center of each tract based on population distribution. When population-weighted centroids were unavailable, geometric centroids from Tigris were used instead. These combined sources provide the spatial and temporal foundation for assigning daily weather values to U.S. census tracts in a way that balances geographic precision with computational efficiency. This dataset includes all census tracts, regardless of land area, meaning both land-based and water-only tracts are represented in the final output.
Unit(s) of Observation:  View help for Unit(s) of Observation United States Census Tracts
Geographic Unit:  View help for Geographic Unit United States Census Tracts

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Published Versions

V1 [2025-05-23]

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