CONTACT:  Patricia Viets, NOAA                      9/22/98

          
                         MEDIA ADVISORY
                                
         NOAA PLACES CLIMATE DATA ABOUT CHINA ON INTERNET
                                

Information about China's severe summer flooding has been placed on line, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said today.

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., has included on the World Wide Web page a brief narrative, satellite images of river flooding, and daily and monthly climatic data. The daily and monthly data were produced from a sophisticated system of programs that decode and provide quality control for the synoptic data.

China has officially reported over 3000 deaths and more than $20 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages.

The Web page is accessible via: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/reports/weather-events.html

Additional climatic extremes and events information is accessible via: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/climate/severeweather/severeweather.html