NDBC data buoys are down

[Joseph Berkovitz]

A water leak in a data center has taken the entire US weather data buoy system offline. No word on when they will be back.

 

[EEL]

Fortunately the NERACOOS buoy data is up and current on its website.

http://oceandata.gmri.org/data/recent.html

Ed Lawson

 

[Joseph Berkovitz]

NERACOOS is a regional marine data collection consortium that owns and operates many of the buoys we use regularly, although we often think of them as NOAA buoys because they share their data with NOAA. For example, NERACOOS "A" (Mass. Bay) is the same buoy as NOAA 44029, and so on for the various other buoys that have familiar names and locations. These buoys are still up and running because NERACOOS I guess is the primary data collection point for them, whereas the buoys owned/operated by NOAA we just can't get to.

Here is another link to an online map that is actually operated by NERACOOS and has some nice graphs for the buoys that are working:

https://mariners.neracoos.org/

[josko]

Guess the government doesn't want us to know which way the wind is blowing. 

[EEL]

Josko, actually there is something to that, but rather it is the commercial weather services that want to minimize, if not eliminate, readily available, free weather data from NOAA so they can monetize that data by packaging it on their websites, etc.  Or at least that is one of the stories in Michale Lewis's book "Fifth Risk"

Ed Lawson

 

[Joseph Berkovitz]

And... they’re back! Mostly. The NDBC never offered an explanation but gCaptain had this to say:

A statement posted to the NDBC website said the agency’s primary processing servers were shut off due to a facilities issue on March 9. A spokesperson for the National Weather Service offered some additional information about what happened in an emailed statement: 

“On March 9, a burst pipe caused extensive flooding at NWS headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, which caused an outage at the data center housed in the building. NOAA’s ocean/marine buoy data are processed on servers located in the affected data center, causing the current buoy data outage. The building is currently being dried out by the building owner/manager, Foulger Pratt. Extensive coordination is taking place between NOAA and Foulger Pratt to develop a comprehensive plan for a full damage assessment, to inspect and restore systems in the building, and to ensure the building is fully repaired and safe for employees to return to their offices. This process will take time to complete. and we do not have an estimation at this time for when the marine buoy data will be available. Alternate solutions to restore buoy data flow are being worked.”