Climatic elements, such as temperature, precipitation, snow, wind, pressure, etc., are included and intended to portray the climate of the United States. The point data used to create the maps came from the National Climatic Data Center's extensive climate data archives. GIS tools used include ESRI's ArcInfo, ArcView, ArcIMS, as well as PRISM, a proprietary climate model. The Atlas' internet interface (html and javascript) communicates with ArcIMS to render the images.
