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National Data Buoy Center
The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), part of the National Weather Service, is an agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is supported by personnel and ships of the U.S. Coast Guard. NDBC operates automated observing systems that measure environmental conditions from remote marine and coastal areas. These measurements support the requirements of NOAA and other programs of national and international scope and are used for forecasting, public advisories and warnings, and in research programs.
Environmental measurements are made by a network of moored buoys and land stations located along the nation’s coastlines. Moored buoys are deployed in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico and the Bering Sea. Each buoy is designed and moored to perform in the specific conditions it will encounter whether located within a few miles of the coast or in the ocean where the water is more than 10,000 feet deep. After two years of service, many of these buoys are returned to SSC for refurbishment. The coastal land stations are part of a program called C-MAN, the Coastal Marine Automated Network. The C-MAN program was initiated in the early 1980s to replace manual observations being lost from remote coastal sources such as Coast Guard light stations that were becoming automated.
All stations report wind direction and speed, atmospheric pressure and air temperature. Additionally, all moored buoys and selected C-MAN stations measure water temperature and wave information. Selected C-MAN stations also measure water level, solar radiation, humidity, precipitation and visibility. These measurements are transmitted hourly to the National Meteorological Center for use in analysis and forecasting and for retransmission to other national and international users. The measurements are closely checked by analysts at NDBC who use automated and man-machine techniques to ensure they are of the highest quality. The measurements are archived monthly at the National Climatic Data Center and the National Oceanographic Data Center for subsequent use in research and industry.
NDBC acquires environmental data from a network of moored buoys and land stations located along the nation’s coastlines. The buoys are designed to perform in the specific conditions they will encounter, whether located within a few miles of the coast or in the deep ocean.