Reference · built on requestCommons signalAviation & marine

NOAA Ocean Prediction Center

Offshore and high seas forecasts, gridded wind and wave fields, and radiofax charts for the North Atlantic and Pacific from NOAA's OPC.

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About

The Ocean Prediction Center is the National Weather Service office in Washington DC that forecasts the North Atlantic and North Pacific high seas. It issues High Seas Forecasts such as HSFAT1 (FZNT01 KWBC) for the North Atlantic north of 31N to 67N and west of 35W, superseded every six hours, and Offshore Waters Forecasts for New England, the Mid Atlantic, Washington and Oregon, and California. Its gridded marine forecasts go into the National Digital Forecast Database at 5 km and three-hour steps out to 144 hours, served as GRIB2 from tgftp.nws.noaa.gov. Radiofax charts and RSS 2.0 feeds of every text product are open.

An operator reads the forecast for the waters your vessels, cargo, or coastal sites depend on and proposes a sailing hold, a storm reserve, or a crew notice for your approval.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from NOAA Ocean Prediction Center 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

  • High Seas Forecasts HSFAT1 (North Atlantic), HSFEP1 and HSFEPI (North Pacific) as text at /shtml/NFDHSFAT1.php and RSS at /xml/NFDHSFAT1.xml
  • Offshore Waters Forecasts: NFDOFFNT1 New England, NFDOFFNT2 Mid Atlantic, NFDOFFPZ5 Washington/Oregon, NFDOFFPZ6 California
  • NAVTEX marine forecasts for Boston, Portsmouth, Charleston, Astoria, San Francisco, and Cambria as RSS
  • Gridded 10-m wind speed and direction, wind gusts, significant wave height, and marine hazards in GRIB2 under DC.ndfd/AR.oceanic
  • Radiofax charts as GIF from tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/fax: surface analysis, 24, 48, and 96 hour surface and wind-wave forecasts, sea state, 500 mb
  • Storm and hurricane warnings inside the forecast text and flagged on the OPC home page

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

  • Hold outbound cargo ahead of a storm warning

    Poll the Offshore Waters Forecast for your departure zone. When the bulletin carries a storm warning inside the shipping window, the operator proposes a hold on affected orders with the bulletin text attached.

    With Weather Hold, Carrier Exception

  • Notify coastal crews before high seas

    Read gridded significant wave height for your site's cell. When the forecast exceeds your threshold, the operator proposes a notice to field crews and a schedule change for your approval.

    With Severe Weather Notice, Field Dispatch

  • Reserve generators before an offshore blow

    Match wind gust grids to your coastal facilities. A forecast above the site threshold at 48 hours becomes a proposed fuel top-up and generator test.

    With Storm Reserve, Storm Prep

Requirements

  • The product ids for your waters, such as NFDOFFNT1 or NFDHSFAT1, and the matching /xml feed
  • A GRIB2 reader for the VP.001-003 and VP.004-007 files under DC.ndfd/AR.oceanic
  • A poll schedule aligned to the published update times: about every three hours for days 1 to 3
Authentication
None. Text products, RSS feeds, GRIB2 grids, and radiofax images are open HTTPS downloads from ocean.weather.gov and tgftp.nws.noaa.gov.

Limits

  • Coverage is the North Atlantic and North Pacific; Alaska, Hawaii, and tropical waters are issued by other NWS offices
  • Text forecasts are plain-language bulletins; zone geometry has to be joined from NWS marine zone files
  • Gridded elements are wind, gusts, wave height, and hazards; no wave period or visibility grids
  • Radiofax charts are images, not data; day 4 to 6 grids update four times a day rather than eight

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 NOAA Ocean Prediction Center ↗

Questions and answers

How often are the high seas forecasts issued?
The North Atlantic High Seas Forecast HSFAT1 states it is superseded by the next issuance in six hours, giving four bulletins a day. Each carries a synopsis plus 24 and 48 hour forecasts with valid times in UTC.
Where do the gridded wind and wave files live?
OPC's grids are part of the National Digital Forecast Database. Days 1 to 3 are at tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/SL.us008001/ST.opnl/DF.gr2/DC.ndfd/AR.oceanic/VP.001-003/ and days 4 to 6 under VP.004-007/, in GRIB2 over HTTP and FTP, at 5 km and three-hour resolution.
Is there a machine-readable feed of the text products?
Yes. OPC has published RSS 2.0 feeds since March 2012. Each feed contains the bulletin text and a link to the bulletin page, for example /xml/NFDOFFNT1.xml for New England offshore waters and /xml/NFDHSFAT1.xml for the North Atlantic high seas.
Ask about NOAA Ocean Prediction Center

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 Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center (ocean.weather.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