Python Date comparison not working as desired when comparing input date strings and date strings from file

I have a weather data file that has high temps, low temp, rainfall, etc. I need to open the file and return data based on year ranges from user input. User inputs a starting date and ending date then I put that data into a list that user can then search for highest (HIGHTEMP) or lowest temps (LOWTEMP) or highest rainfall (PRCP) in that sub-list of data of year ranges.

My date comparison is not working for some reason, therefore nothing ever shows up in the results. I am using from dateutil.parser import parse to convert the strings into Date types for comparison.

Here is what I have so far:

def openFile():
    begin = input("Enter your starting year in this format YYYY ")
    end = input("Enter your ending year for weather data in this format YYYY ")

def parse_line(line):
    FORMAT_MAP = {
        # fieldname : (start, end)
        "STATION": (0, 17),
        "STATION_NAME": (18, 68)
        "ELEVATION": (69, 79),
        "LATITUDE": (80, 90),
        "LONGITUDE": (91, 102),
        "DATE": (102, 111),
        "PRCP": (112, 120),
        "TEMPMAX": (121, 129),
        "TEMPMIN": (130, 140)
         }
    return {name: line[start:end].strip() for name, (start, end) in FORMAT_MAP.items()}

def iter_parse_file(f, begin, end):
        # skip the first two header lines
    next(f);  next(f)
    # convert string into Date with parse
    begin = parse(begin)
    end = parse(end)

    for line in f:
       print(line)
       row = parse_line(line)
       year = row["DATE"][:4]
       #parsing the year string into a Date
       year = parse(year)
       print("The year is ", year)
       print("begin is ", begin)
       print("end is ", end)
       ########################
       #### This is the part that is not working as desired. I get no results
       if year > begin:
          continue
       elif year < end:
          break
       yield row

def gen(begin, end):
        with open("/Users/jasontt/data.txt") as f:
           rows = list(iter_parse_file(f, str(begin), str(end)))

        for row in rows:
           print("Date is {DATE} : With a Minimum Temperature of {TEMPMIN} - and a Maximum Temperature of {TEMPMAX}".format(**row))

Sample Data:

STATION           STATION_NAME                                       ELEVATION  LATITUDE   LONGITUDE  DATE     PRCP     TEMPMAX     TEMPMIN
----------------- -------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- -------- -------- -------- --------
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490101 0.00     44       27
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490102 0.00     42       25
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490103 0.15     46       30
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490104 0.03     41       30
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490105 1.14     46       37
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490106 0.00     51       40
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490107 0.00     57       36
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490108 0.00     56       45
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490109 0.00     66       42
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490110 0.00     70       51
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490111 0.03     59       45
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490112 0.04     48       38
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490113 0.00     52       36
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490114 0.00     56       36
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490115 0.00     49       31
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490116 0.00     68       28
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490117 0.00     63       50
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490118 0.04     53       42
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490119 0.01     63       38
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490120 0.00     45       28
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490121 0.97     35       28
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490122 0.29     60       34
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490123 0.14     47       38
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490124 0.01     72       38
GHCND:USW00013741                     SPOKANE REGIONAL AIRPORT WA US      366.1   37.31667  -79.96667 19490125 0.05     66       49