Climate Indices: Monthly PSL Standard Format


In general, the format for PSL monthly timeseries is as follows:

year1 yearend
year1 valjan valfeb valmar valapr valmay valjun valjul valaug valsep valoct valnov valdec
year2 valjan valfeb valmar valapr valmay valjun valjul valaug valsep valoct valnov valdec
year3 valjan valfeb valmar valapr valmay valjun valjul valaug valsep valoct valnov valdec
.....
yearend valjan valfeb valmar valapr valmay valjun valjul valaug valsep valoct valnov valdec
missingvalue
infoline1
infoline2
.....
(as many infolines as needed).

Where year1 is the first year of the timeseries and yearend is the last year. For each year, list the year and 12 monthly values, all separated by spaces. Do not skip any years. If there are years with no data or months with no data, use a missing value, preferably one outside the range of data. After the last year of data, there should be a line with a missing value. Even if you don't have missing values, please enter a number (not in the range of data). -999 is often good to use. Any line after the missing value line is treated as text so anything can go here. This can include source, title, date, URL's, caveats and so forth. It is farily straightforward to read this format in Fortran or Perl. The main thing is to not have anything missing; the format relies on this though code will try some consistency checks like testing number of values in a line and checking the number of lines compared with the year range on the top line.