Ocean Buoy & Coastal Weather by Radius: data from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (Waves, Wind, Water Temp, 45-Day History)

Get live and recent marine observations from about 1,300 moored buoys and coastal stations distributed by NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC): wave height and period, wave direction, wind speed, gusts and direction, pressure and tendency, air and water temperature, dew point, visibility and tide. Search by radius around any point, by station ID or by station type, and get either the latest reading per station or every reading from the last 45 days. No API key, no login. Published by BigSky Data Tools.

NOT FOR SAFETY-CRITICAL USE: data may be delayed or incomplete; not for life-safety, navigation or emergency decisions; use official NDBC sources.

Partner stations: some stations are owned by partners, not NDBC. Rows from non-NDBC owners are partner data, not NDBC quality controlled; owner terms may apply. Each row carries the station owner and a dataNotice field saying which applies.

Why use this buoy data tool?

• 📍 Radius search, nearest first: every row has distanceMiles.
• 🌊 Ready-to-use units: meters and feet for waves, m/s and knots for wind, °C and °F for temperatures, ISO UTC timestamps.
• 🕒 Two modes: latest (one row per station, stale stations dropped with maxAgeHours) or history (every reading in the last N hours, up to 45 days).
• 🔎 Filters: station IDs, station type (moored buoy, fixed coastal platform, DART, USV), only rows with wave data.
• 🏷️ Station name, operator and a link to each station page.
• ⏱️ observedAgeMinutes on every row, so you can drop stale readings.

How it compares

In our Apify Store search on 2026-10-31 we did not find another Actor offering all of the features marked Yes below together; some alternatives offer individual features, as the "Typical alternatives" column shows. The Store may have changed since.

	This tool	Typical alternatives
Search area	Radius around any point, many stations, nearest first	One station ID, or the single nearest buoy
History in one run	Up to 45 days	Varies by tool
Filter by station type and wave data	Yes	Not offered
Data age on every row (observedAgeMinutes)	Yes	Not offered

Who uses it

Offshore wind and oil & gas operations, shipping and port logistics, marine insurers, fishing and charter fleets, surf and coastal apps, coastal engineering firms, weather and data-science teams training or validating models, and researchers.

Input example

{ "latitude": "36.6", "longitude": "-122.0", "radiusMiles": 100 }

History for two buoys: { "mode": "history", "stationIds": ["46026", "41009"], "historyHours": 12 }

Output example

{ "stationId": "46042", "stationName": "MONTEREY - 27NM WNW of Monterey, CA", "stationType": "buoy", "owner": "NDBC",
  "latitude": 36.787, "longitude": -122.408, "distanceMiles": null, "observedAt": "2026-10-31T17:00:00Z",
  "windDirDeg": 60.0, "windSpeedMs": 3.0, "windSpeedKt": 5.8, "windGustMs": 4.0, "windGustKt": 7.8,
  "waveHeightM": null, "waveHeightFt": null, "pressureHpa": 1013.0, "pressureTendencyHpa": 0.4,
  "airTempC": 15.8, "airTempF": 60.4, "waterTempC": 18.1, "waterTempF": 64.6, "dewPointC": 10.8,
  "source": "NOAA National Data Buoy Center", "sourceUrl": "https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46042" }

Missing sensor values are null, and missingNote names every null field with its reason. Export to JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or use the Apify API, Make, Zapier or n8n. Schedule it hourly to build your own time series.

Pricing

$7 per 1,000 results ($0.007 per result) plus a $0.01 start fee per run.

Pay per result: you pay for each observation saved. A 100-mile latest-mode search usually returns 10-40 rows; history mode returns roughly 24-240 rows per station per day, so cap it with historyHours, maxStations and maxResults. Free-plan users can try it within their monthly platform credit.

Apify's per-run maximum charge setting also limits results: for example, a $4.44 limit allows about 632 rows. Raise it in the run options for a full pull.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? From the public real-time files published by NOAA's National Data Buoy Center. Some stations are operated by NDBC partners (other agencies, universities, foreign met services); the owner field shows who. Data is provisional and not quality-controlled in real time. Source data are works of the U.S. federal government (NOAA NDBC) and generally not subject to U.S. copyright (17 U.S.C. 105). This is not a license or warranty; third-party or foreign rights may apply, including for partner-owned and foreign stations. You are responsible for how you use the data. Why are some values empty? NDBC marks a value as missing (MM) without saying why. Each row's missingNote lists every null field: no meteorological sensors at this station only when NDBC's station list says the station has none (met=n) and the row has no meteorological values at all (that list can be stale: e.g. 41038 is listed met=n but reports wind, pressure and temperature); otherwise not in this NDBC report (sensor offline, not installed or not transmitted; NDBC does not say which). Feet, knots and Fahrenheit fields say they were converted from a missing value, and distanceMiles is not applicable without a search center. Many shore (fixed) stations never report waves, tide or visibility; check the station page linked in sourceUrl. A blank station name or type is noted as not given in NDBC's active station list. missingNote is null when nothing is missing. How far back does history go? NDBC's real-time files keep about 45 days. Is this tool run by the data agency? No. BigSky Data Tools is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA, NDBC or any partner station owner. Do not use it for navigation or safety-of-life decisions.

Is the data guaranteed? No. The tool and data are provided as is, without warranty of accuracy, completeness or timeliness, and values can differ from the source agency's official products.