PACS Surface: Buoy 32302 Meteorological Data 1. General Description This data set contains data from buoy 32302 located at 18.0 S Latitude and 85.1 W Longitude covering the period 02 February 1986 through 03 April 1995. The Joint Office of Science Support (JOSS) obtained this data from the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) web site at www.ndbc.noaa.gov. JOSS conducted no quality control on this data. 2. Data Contact Jose Meitin (meitin@ucar.edu) 3. Format Description An example line from a data file looks like this : YY MM DD hh WD WSPD GST WVHT DPD APD MWD BAR ATMP WTMP DEWP VIS 92 07 20 00 126 09.2 11.0 03.00 09.10 06.80 999 1016.6 18.9 19.6 999.0 99.0 Where 92 is the year (92 = 1992) 07 is the month (7 = July) 20 is the day 00 is the nominal hour (UTC) 126 is the wind direction (Deg) 09.2 is the wind speed (m/s) 11.0 is the peak wind gust (m/s) 03.00 is the significant wave height (m) 06.80 is the average wave period (s) 09.10 is the dominat wave period (s) 999 is the mean wave direction (Deg) 1016.6 is the sea level pressure (mb) 18.9 is the air temperature (Deg C) 19.6 is sea surface temperature (Deg C) 999.0 is the dew point temperature (Deg C) 99.0 is Station visibility in statute miles Data are classified according to the following groups. Any data field that contains "9 filled" represents missing data for that observation hour. (Example: 999.0 99.0) A. Standard meteorological data. ATMP Air temperature (Celsius). For sensor heights on buoys, see Hull Descriptions. For sensor heights at C-MAN stations, see C-MAN Sensor Locations WTMP Sea surface temperature (Celsius). For sensor depth, see Hull Description. DEWP Dewpoint temperature taken at the same height as the air temperature measurement. BAR Sea level pressure (hPa). For C-MAN sites and Great Lakes buoys, the recorded pressure is reduced to sea level using the method described in NWS Technical Procedures Bulletin 291 (11/14/80). WSPD Wind speed (m/s) averaged over an eight-minute period for buoys and a two-minute period for land stations. Reported Hourly. See Wind Averaging Methods. WDIR Wind direction (the direction the wind is coming from in degrees clockwise from N) during the same period used for WSPD. See Wind Averaging Methods GST Peak 5 or 8 second gust speed (m/s) measured during the eight-minute or two-minute period. The 5 or 8 second period can be determined by payload, See the Sensor Reporting, Sampling, and Accuracy section. WVHT Significant wave height (meters) is calculated as the average of the highest one-third of all of the wave heights during the 20-minute sampling period. See the Wave Measurements section. APD Average wave period (seconds) of all waves during the 20-minute period. See the Wave Measurements section. DPD Dominant wave period (seconds) is the period with the maximum wave energy. See the Wave Measurements section. MWD Mean wave direction (degrees) corresponding to energy of the dominant period (DOMPD). See the Wave Measurements section. VIS Station visibility (statute miles) PTDY Pressure Tendency is the direction (plus or minus) and the amount of pressure change (hPa)for a three hour period ending at the time of observation. TIDE The periodic rising and falling of the earth's oceans. Tide is measured in feet.