Reference · built on requestCommons signalAir, water & environment

National Data Buoy Center real-time data

Hourly buoy and coastal station winds, waves, pressure, and water temperature from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center, last 45 days.

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About

The National Data Buoy Center, part of the National Weather Service, posts observations from moored buoys, C-MAN coastal stations, and other hosted stations as flat text files under ndbc.noaa.gov/data/realtime2. Files are named station_id.datatype: .txt for standard meteorology, .spec for spectral wave summaries, .cwind for continuous winds, .ocean for oceanographic data, .adcp for current profiles, .tide for tide data, and .drift for drifting buoys. The directory holds the last 45 days, and the data has passed automated quality control as it was received. A separate latest_obs.txt file carries the most recent observation under two hours old from every hosted station, with position, refreshed about every five minutes.

Through Fibric, an operator reads the stations off your coast and proposes dock, crew, and shipment decisions from the wind and sea state.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from National Data Buoy Center real-time data and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Standard meteorology per station from realtime2/{station}.txt: WDIR, WSPD, GST, WVHT, DPD, APD, MWD, PRES, ATMP, WTMP, DEWP, VIS, PTDY, TIDE
  • Spectral wave summaries from .spec files, and raw spectral data from .data_spec, .swdir, .swdir2, .swr1, and .swr2
  • Continuous winds from .cwind, oceanographic data from .ocean, and ADCP current profiles from .adcp
  • The latest observation from every hosted station, with latitude and longitude, in data/latest_obs/latest_obs.txt
  • Active station metadata in activestations.xml: id, position, owner, program, and which data types reported in the past eight hours
  • RSS feeds per station and by radius around a point through rss/ndbc_obs_search.php

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Time dock work to the sea state

    Wave height and dominant period from the nearest buoy are checked before each berth window. When WVHT passes your limit, the operator proposes moving the slot and tells the carrier.

    With Dock Schedule

  • Hold coastal deliveries in high wind

    Sustained wind and gusts from the C-MAN station on a route propose a hold on the exposed stops, with the observation hour on the proposal.

    With Weather Hold

  • Check in on crews working near the water

    A rising sea state at the station nearest a lone worker's site proposes an earlier check-in and a return-to-shore message for your approval.

    With Lone Worker

  • Send a marine conditions notice

    Pressure tendency, wind, and wave height above your thresholds become a draft notice to waterfront sites, citing the station and the hour.

    With Severe Weather Notice

Requirements

  • Station ids for the buoys and C-MAN stations near your operations, uppercase for alphabetic ids such as FPSN7
  • A parser for the fixed-column text files that treats MM as missing data
  • A retrieval schedule that respects the hourly reporting cadence; most data is posted by 25 minutes after the hour
  • Your own wind and wave thresholds, since NDBC publishes observations, not warnings
Authentication
None. The files are public HTTPS downloads from ndbc.noaa.gov; NDBC asks that you use HTTPS rather than FTP, which it expects to discontinue.

Limits

  • Realtime files cover only the last 45 days; older observations come from the historical pages, not this directory
  • Not every station reports every data type; all stations should have .txt and buoys should have .spec
  • Wind is averaged over eight minutes on buoys and two minutes on land stations; waves over a 20-minute sampling period
  • NDBC asks you to limit retrievals to a minimal level and discourages screen scraping of its pages

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

Request National Data Buoy Center real-time data ↗

Questions and answers

How often do stations report?
Most stations report hourly, and most of the data is available by 25 minutes after the hour. The latest_obs.txt file is regenerated about every five minutes. NDBC says to check a station's Previous Observations to learn its reporting frequency.
What do the standard columns contain?
Wind direction and speed with peak gust, significant wave height, dominant and average wave period, mean wave direction, sea level pressure, air and sea surface temperature, dew point, visibility, three-hour pressure tendency, and water level relative to MLLW. Missing values are MM.
Is there an API or only files?
Files. NDBC serves ASCII files over HTTPS, plus RSS feeds per station or by radius, the latest_obs.txt summary, and activestations.xml metadata. NDBC discourages building on screen scraping and asks that you limit retrievals.
Ask about National Data Buoy Center real-time data

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by NOAA National Data Buoy Center (ndbc.noaa.gov). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy