Meteorological and oceanographic data collected from the National Data Buoy Center Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) and moored (weather) buoys

The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) established the Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) for the National Weather Service in the early 1980's. NDBC has installed approximately 50 C-MAN stations on lighthouses, at capes and beaches, on near shore islands, and on offshore platforms. NDBC has also deployed over 100 moored (a.k.a., weather) buoys in coastal and offshore waters from the western Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii, and from the Bering Sea to the South Pacific. C-MAN and moored buoy data typically include barometric pressure, wind direction, speed and gust, and air temperature; however, some C-MAN stations are equipped to also measure seawater temperature, water level, waves, and relative humidity. Moored buoys measure wave energy spectra from which NDBC derives significant wave height, dominant wave period, and average wave period. In addition, many moored buoys measure the direction of wave propagation. In collaboration, NDBC and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) -- formerly the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) -- are archiving these data from C-MAN and moored buoys. This collection is part of the collaboration and it contains both NODC F291 and netCDF (version 4) files with data collected from February 1970 through the present day.