Coastal Services Center

---

Northeast Florida  > Preparing for Hazards

---

Data Access and Standards

Making Coastal Ocean and Weather Data Accessible in a User-Friendly Format

Coastal ocean and weather observations are critically important to coastal communities for producing timely and accurate weather forecasts, developing community plans for storm preparation and response, and mitigating effects of future events. Despite their importance, these observations are collected by a variety of organizations and are typically not available in a format useful to multiple organizations.

As part of the Coastal Storms Program (CSP), NOAA will increase the amount of data available to forecasters and community decision makers to support accurate forecasts and response scenarios. Rapid access to real-time observations will save time and effort during the critical periods immediately before, during, and after a storm event.

Where the Project Is Now

To increase the amount of data available to forecasters and community decision makers, new and qualified data sources are being made available to National Weather Service forecasters. All the weather data identified are being added to a meteorological database maintained at NOAA's Forecast System Laboratory. The Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) is available on-line and will include features like real-time surface observation displays. To apply for real-time access to the MADIS data sets or to access the on-line archive, users need to fill in the data application available from this site. To learn more about this project or other coastal applications, visit the National Coastal Data Development Center Web site.

For Additional Information

Russ Beard
NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
National Coastal Data Development Center
Telephone: (228) 688-3026
Russ.Beard@noaa.gov