NCEP Real-time (NRT) Marine Observations

Monthly and weekly files of surface marine data gathered from the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) become available at NCEP two days after the data month or week. These are basic observational data (individual marine reports from ships, buoys, etc.) in a simple ascii format containing selected weather elements.

Data for the immediately preceding month and week are available via ftp from NCEP (a file, updated daily with a 2-day data delay, is also available for users that need data for the current month before that month is complete). Monthly files for January 1991-February 2011 are available from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

The data were also used in the past at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory to construct ICOADS-like monthly summaries for 2° x 2° boxes.

Also available:

format documentation, including alternative ftp instructions

Fortran read program

The data are largely unedited, although one major change in processing became effective with March 1997 data, with transition of the input data to the BUFR format (see format documentation for details).

[Data and Documentation][Documentation and Software]