Early Meteorological Records from Latin-America and Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries, collection of data files

This paper provides early instrumental data recovered in Latin-America and the Caribbean. Data have been retrieved from 20 countries (Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, British Guiana, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, France (Martinique and Guadalupe), Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Suriname) and they cover the 18th and 19th centuries.

The main meteorological variables retrieved are air temperature, atmospheric pressure and precipitation but other variables, such as humidity, wind direction, or state of the sky have been retrieved when possible. In total, more than 300 000 early instrumental observations have been rescued (96% with daily resolution). Special effort has been done to document all the available metadata (instruments, observers, methodology of observation...) in order to allow further post processing.