Observations are the foundation for our understanding of the weather, and our region has a rich history of weather observations that goes back into the 1600s.

Official weather records in Wilmington and Dover begin in the late 1800s, while in Philadelphia, official weather data starts around 1870. Much of the older data is only available in written form.

But the Philadelphia data, all the way back to 1872, is available in digital form on the Franklin Institute's web site. You can take a look at http://www.fi.edu/weather/data2/ and please, let me know about any interesting discoveries you make while sifting through the numbers.