Dean Bowman of the USAF Environmental Technical Applications Center (ETAC) created these monthly climatologies of temperature and winds for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and geopotential height for the Northern Hemisphere. Generally, the data input period from approximately 150 stations was the 5-year period from January 1956 through December 1960, but some data into 1962 was also used.

The data are available on 5-degree latitude/longitude grids separately for each hemisphere, and for eight vertical pressure levels from 850 mbar up to 50 mbar.