Air/Ocean Data from NOAA Ocean Moored Buoys provided by Environmental Research Division, NOAA Fisheries SWFSC, ERDDAP services NDBC Standard Meteorological Buoy Data, 1970-present, ERDDAP Information, ERD, NOAA Fisheries SWFSC

As a value added data product, PFEL provides processed moored buoy data. These data contain hourly and daily mean values of air temperature, sea temperature, surface atmospheric pressure, wind speed, and wind direction. Sources of the data are 22 different NOAA NDBC moored buoys along the North American west coast. The data has been processed from the raw hourly data files. The processed buoy data is updated semi-annually by PFEL.

Glossary

V Wind and U Wind

The vector wind northward and eastward components, respectively. Winds are in "ocean convention", i.e., direction blowing to.

Wind Speed

Daily average speed is calculated by meaning the hourly speeds rather than from the daily mean; it differs from the V Wind and U Wind speed.

More from Measurement Descriptions and Units, NDBC NOAA

NOAA National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) Moored Buoy Program

Moored buoys are the weather sentinels of the sea. They are deployed in the coastal and offshore waters from the western Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii, and from the Bering Sea to the South Pacific. NDBC's moored buoys measure and transmit barometric pressure; wind direction, speed, and gust; air and sea temperature; and wave energy spectra from which significant wave height, dominant wave period, and average wave period are derived. Even the direction of wave propagation is measured on many moored buoys.

In addition to their use in operational forecasting, warnings, and atmospheric models, moored buoy data are used for scientific and research programs, emergency response to chemical spills, legal proceedings, and engineering design.¹

¹ Text from the NDBC Moored Buoy Program web page, https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/mooredbuoy.shtml.