ERA5 / ERA5-Land
Free
ECMWF's hourly global reanalysis — the default gap-free climate forcing record for ungauged catchments worldwide.
NOAA CFSR / CFSv2
ActiveNCEP's coupled atmosphere-ocean-land reanalysis, sub-daily, 1979–present — strong where ocean coupling matters.
by NOAA NCEI / NCEP
- Pricing
- Gov-Public
- License
- US Government (public domain)
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Ecosystem
- Python, GRIB tools
- Platform
- Windows, macOS, Linux
About NOAA CFSR / CFSv2
The Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR, 1979–2011) and its operational successor CFSv2 (2011–present) are NCEP's coupled atmosphere-ocean-land-sea ice reanalysis products, distributed by NOAA NCEI at roughly 0.2°–0.5° resolution and sub-daily timestep. The ocean coupling gives it an edge for coastal and estuarine studies where sea-surface conditions feed back into the atmospheric forcing.
Access is via NOAA's NOMADS THREDDS server or FTP archive in GRIB-2 format — less turnkey than ERA5's CDS API, but a useful third reanalysis for basins where ECMWF and NASA products disagree.
Where it fits in the workflow
TerrainCatchmentRainfallRunoffRoutingHydraulicsMappingReporting
Alternatives to NOAA CFSR / CFSv2
Ranked by the topics, categories and workflow stages they share with NOAA CFSR / CFSv2.
MERRA-2
Gov-Public
NASA's satellite-era atmospheric reanalysis — hourly global fields from 1980, the default alternative to ERA5.
Programmatic access to ERA5 and the Copernicus Climate Data Store — the world's reanalysis workhorse.
The longest satellite soil moisture record available — merged active+passive retrievals back to 1978, free, no login.
Caravan
Open Source
The open global large-sample hydrology dataset — thousands of catchments with forcing, attributes and streamflow.
NetSTORM
Free
CDM Smith's free rainfall statistics and STORM-method screening model — IDF analysis, disaggregation, CSO planning.