license:cc-by-4.0 region:us
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license: cc-by-4.0
---

The MADIS observation data is stored in Zarr files, which can be opened using the Xarray library.

The observations for a specific hour YYYY-MM-DD HH:00 are stored in the file `
madis2020/MM/(mesonet|metar)/YYYYMMDD_HH00.zarr`.

Each Zarr file has the following variables:

* temperature
* dewpoint
* windSpeed
* precip6Hour (available only in the METAR files)

Each variable has a corresponding quality control variable:

* temperatureDD
* dewpointDD
* windSpeedDD
* precip6HourDD

Lastly, the dataset contains two variables `latitue and `longitude` that specify where the observation was taken.