The Midwestern Regional Climate Center provides high-quality climate data, tools, interactive maps, and customized services for the Midwest and the nation. Established in 1982, the MRCC is a cooperative program between the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Our center is a partner in a national climate service program that includes NCEI, five other Regional Climate Centers, and State Climate Offices.

The MRCC serves the nine-state Midwest region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin), although many products and services are applicable nationwide. Our work helps explain climate impacts on the Midwest, inform practical solutions to specific climate problems, and enables climate-informed decisions for regional topics such as agriculture, energy systems, human health, risk management, transportation, and water resources.

The MRCC's mission is to:

• Monitor and assess regional climate conditions and impacts
• Provide unbiased climate data, derived information, and data summaries for the region
• Prepare customized historical climate data sets
• Conduct research and outreach on regionally-relevant climate issues

The MRCC partners with several organizations nationally. To see a partial list of those partners, visit the Climate Partners page.

About the RCCs

The Regional Climate Centers (RCCs) program provides regional and national climate services to a wide range of stakeholders: federal, state, tribal, and local government agencies; farmers; water resource managers; emergency planners; transportation authorities; businesses; and the public. The centers work closely with customers to ensure the data and information provided are timely, relevant, and useful. RCCs receive daily requests for decision-making products and services, with millions of combined website hits annually. The Centers interconnect nationally, but operate regionally, with each one covering between six and twelve states.

The RCCs were authorized programmatically by the National Climate Program Act of 1978 and have been in operation for over 40 years. The Centers’ programs are peer-reviewed and competitively awarded. The Centers receive multi-year contracts through NOAA and are part of NOAA's budget, administered by the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Celebrating 40 Years of the Regional Climate Center Program

The RCCs collaborated on a four-part series of articles, Celebrating 40 Years of the Regional Climate Center Program, including:

• A Brief History
• Applied Climate Information System
• Climate Services in Action
• Partnerships in Action

Below is an interactive timeline of the RCC system history, which is hosted on the Southern Regional Climate Center's website.