NDBC Buoy

An NDBC buoy is a moored data buoy operated by NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center, the United States network of coastal and offshore weather and wave stations. Hulls range from 3 m foam and aluminum discus buoys to 10 and 12 m hulls on deep moorings, reporting wind speed and direction, gust, air and sea surface temperature, barometric pressure, and wave height, period, and direction. Standard meteorological observations transmit hourly over GOES or Iridium to the WMO Global Telecommunication System. The data feed marine forecasts, wave models such as WAVEWATCH III, and satellite validation, and the long station records anchor coastal climate and extreme-wave statistics.