Gap-free 16-year (2005-2020) sub-diurnal surface meteorological observations across Florida

The rather unique sub-tropical, flat, peninsular region of Florida is subject to a unique climate with extreme weather events across the year that impacts agriculture, public health, and management of natural resources. Meteorological data at high temporal resolutions especially in the tropical latitudes are essential to understand diurnal and semi-diurnal variations of climate, which are considered to be the fundamental modes of climate variations of our Earth system. However, many meteorological datasets contain gaps that limit their use for validation of models and further detailed observational analysis. The objective of this paper is to apply a set of data gap filling strategies to develop a gap-free dataset with 15-minute observations for the sub-tropical region of Florida. Using data from the Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN), methods of linear interpolation, trend continuation, reference to external sources, and nearest station substitution were applied to fill in the data gaps depending on the extent of the gap. The outcome of this study provides continuous, publicly accessible surface meteorological observations for 30 FAWN stations at 15-minute intervals for the years 2005-2020.