NDBC — National Data Buoy Center logo

NDBC — National Data Buoy Center

The NOAA National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) operates a global network of over 1,000 moored buoys, drifting buoys, Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) stations, and partner stations that continuously measure and transmit meteorological and oceanographic conditions. Real-time and historical data — wind direction and speed, wave height and period, sea surface temperature, atmospheric pressure, air temperature, dew point, visibility, and salinity — are distributed freely via HTTP file URLs, a THREDDS/OPeNDAP server (NetCDF), an RSS observation feed, and a latest-observations snapshot updated every five minutes. No API key or authentication is required; data is in the public domain under U.S. government open-data policy.

5 APIs 0 Features
NOAAMarineBuoysOceanWeatherWavesMeteorologicalOceanographicReal-TimeHistoricalGovernmentOpen Data

APIs

NDBC Real-Time Data Service

Provides access to the last 45 days of meteorological and oceanographic observations from NDBC moored buoys and C-MAN coastal stations. Data files are served via HTTPS at https:...

NDBC Latest Observations Service

Delivers a consolidated snapshot of the most recent observation from every active NDBC and partner station, refreshed every five minutes. The flat text file at https://www.ndbc....

NDBC Historical Archive Service

Provides quality-controlled historical observations from NDBC stations organized as annual files (prior years) and monthly files (current year) accessible at https://www.ndbc.no...

NDBC THREDDS/OPeNDAP NetCDF Service

Exposes NDBC station time-series data as NetCDF files through a THREDDS Data Server (TDS) at https://dods.ndbc.noaa.gov/ using the OPeNDAP protocol. Dataset categories include s...

NDBC HF Radar Surface Currents Service

Provides near-real-time ocean surface current speeds and directions derived from High-Frequency (HF) radar systems operated by NDBC and partner networks in various nearshore are...

Resources

🌐
Portal
Portal
🔗
Documentation
Documentation
🔗
Documentation
Documentation
🔗
Documentation
Documentation
🔗
Documentation
Documentation
🔗
Contact
Contact
📜
PrivacyPolicy
PrivacyPolicy
📜
TermsOfService
TermsOfService
🔗
Plans
Plans
🔗
RateLimits
RateLimits
🔗
FinOps
FinOps

Sources

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: ndbc
name: NDBC — National Data Buoy Center
description: >-
  The NOAA National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) operates a global network of over
  1,000 moored buoys, drifting buoys, Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN)
  stations, and partner stations that continuously measure and transmit
  meteorological and oceanographic conditions. Real-time and historical data —
  wind direction and speed, wave height and period, sea surface temperature,
  atmospheric pressure, air temperature, dew point, visibility, and salinity —
  are distributed freely via HTTP file URLs, a THREDDS/OPeNDAP server (NetCDF),
  an RSS observation feed, and a latest-observations snapshot updated every
  five minutes. No API key or authentication is required; data is in the public
  domain under U.S. government open-data policy.
image: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/images/nws/nws_logo.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/ndbc/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
access: 3rd-Party
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
position: Consumer
specificationVersion: '0.19'
tags:
  - NOAA
  - Marine
  - Buoys
  - Ocean
  - Weather
  - Waves
  - Meteorological
  - Oceanographic
  - Real-Time
  - Historical
  - Government
  - Open Data
apis:
  - aid: ndbc:realtime-data-service
    name: NDBC Real-Time Data Service
    description: >-
      Provides access to the last 45 days of meteorological and oceanographic
      observations from NDBC moored buoys and C-MAN coastal stations. Data files
      are served via HTTPS at https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/realtime2/ and
      named by station identifier and measurement type (e.g., 41002.txt for
      standard meteorology, 41002.spec for spectral wave summaries). Measurement
      types include standard meteorology (wind, pressure, temperature, waves),
      continuous winds, spectral wave data (summaries, raw energy density,
      directional components), ADCP currents, oceanographic parameters, and
      tide data. Most stations report hourly; data typically appears within
      25 minutes after the hour. Missing values are represented as MM.
    image: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/images/nws/nws_logo.png
    humanURL: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/rt_data_access.shtml
    baseURL: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/realtime2
    tags:
      - Real-Time
      - Buoys
      - Meteorological
      - Oceanographic
      - Waves
      - Winds
      - Temperature
      - Pressure
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/rt_data_access.shtml
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/docs/ndbc_web_data_guide.pdf
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/measdes.shtml
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/realtime2/
    contact:
      - FN: NDBC Webmaster
        email: [email protected]
    x-products:
      - name: Free
        url: /plans/free.md
    x-rate-limits:
      - url: /rate-limits/rate-limits.md
    x-finops:
      - url: /finops/finops.md

  - aid: ndbc:latest-observations-service
    name: NDBC Latest Observations Service
    description: >-
      Delivers a consolidated snapshot of the most recent observation from every
      active NDBC and partner station, refreshed every five minutes. The flat
      text file at https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/latest_obs.txt
      contains 23 columns (station ID, latitude, longitude, UTC timestamp, wind
      direction and speed, gust, wave height, dominant and average wave period,
      mean wave direction, atmospheric pressure, pressure tendency, air
      temperature, water temperature, dew point, visibility, and tide). Per-station
      RSS files and a geographic observation search RSS feed are also available.
      No authentication required.
    image: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/images/nws/nws_logo.png
    humanURL: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/rss_access.shtml
    baseURL: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs
    tags:
      - Latest Observations
      - Real-Time
      - All Stations
      - RSS
      - Snapshot
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/rss_access.shtml
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/latest_obs.txt
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/rss/ndbc_obs_search.php
    contact:
      - FN: NDBC Webmaster
        email: [email protected]

  - aid: ndbc:historical-archive-service
    name: NDBC Historical Archive Service
    description: >-
      Provides quality-controlled historical observations from NDBC stations
      organized as annual files (prior years) and monthly files (current year)
      accessible at https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/historical/. Measurement
      categories mirror the real-time service: standard meteorology, continuous
      winds, spectral wave data, ADCP currents, and oceanographic parameters.
      Data formats and column definitions are identical to the real-time files
      except that missing values use variable counts of nines (999, 9999, 99.0)
      rather than MM. A web-based historical observation search is available at
      histsearch.php and climatic summaries at climate.php.
    image: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/images/nws/nws_logo.png
    humanURL: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/archive.shtml
    baseURL: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/historical
    tags:
      - Historical
      - Archive
      - Climate
      - Quality-Controlled
      - Annual
      - Monthly
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/archive.shtml
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/measdes.shtml
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/historical/
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/histsearch.php
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/climate.php
    contact:
      - FN: NDBC Webmaster
        email: [email protected]

  - aid: ndbc:thredds-netcdf-service
    name: NDBC THREDDS/OPeNDAP NetCDF Service
    description: >-
      Exposes NDBC station time-series data as NetCDF files through a THREDDS
      Data Server (TDS) at https://dods.ndbc.noaa.gov/ using the OPeNDAP
      protocol. Dataset categories include standard meteorology (stdmet),
      continuous winds (cwind), spectral wave density (swden), acoustic Doppler
      current profiler (adcp, adcp2), oceanographic (ocean), water level
      (wlevel), DART tsunami (dart), and peak/mean currents (pwind, mmbcur).
      Files follow the naming pattern SSSSStYYYY.nc; real-time files use year
      9999. An OceanSITES-format TAO buoy collection and HF Radar surface
      currents are also available via the same server.
    image: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/images/nws/nws_logo.png
    humanURL: https://dods.ndbc.noaa.gov/
    baseURL: https://dods.ndbc.noaa.gov
    tags:
      - NetCDF
      - THREDDS
      - OPeNDAP
      - Scientific Data
      - Currents
      - Tsunami
      - OceanSITES
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://dods.ndbc.noaa.gov/
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://dods.ndbc.noaa.gov/
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://dods.ndbc.noaa.gov/oceansites/
    contact:
      - FN: NDBC Webmaster
        email: [email protected]

  - aid: ndbc:hf-radar-service
    name: NDBC HF Radar Surface Currents Service
    description: >-
      Provides near-real-time ocean surface current speeds and directions
      derived from High-Frequency (HF) radar systems operated by NDBC and
      partner networks in various nearshore areas of the United States. Both
      hourly and 25-hour averaged current products are available. The service
      is accessible at https://hfradar.ndbc.noaa.gov/ and integrates with the
      broader NDBC station data infrastructure. Data supports maritime safety,
      search and rescue operations, and coastal oceanographic research.
    image: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/images/nws/nws_logo.png
    humanURL: https://hfradar.ndbc.noaa.gov/
    baseURL: https://hfradar.ndbc.noaa.gov
    tags:
      - HF Radar
      - Surface Currents
      - Coastal
      - Nearshore
      - Real-Time
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://hfradar.ndbc.noaa.gov/
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://hfradar.ndbc.noaa.gov/
    contact:
      - FN: NDBC Webmaster
        email: [email protected]

common:
  - type: Portal
    url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/docs/ndbc_web_data_guide.pdf
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/rt_data_access.shtml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/measdes.shtml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/faq/stations.shtml
  - type: Contact
    url: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/contacts.shtml
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.noaa.gov/privacy-policy
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.noaa.gov/disclaimer
  - type: Plans
    url: /plans/free.md
  - type: RateLimits
    url: /rate-limits/rate-limits.md
  - type: FinOps
    url: /finops/finops.md

maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]