Live NOAA NCEI Agent

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Live NOAA NCEI Agent

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Agent is a data-loading agent available in EQuIS Live used for obtaining weather data from the NOAA NCEI HTTPS site (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/oa/global-historical-climatology-network/index.html#hourly/access/by-year/).

 

Adding Station(s)

 

Before using the NOAA NCEI Agent, add one or more stations to the DT_LOGGER table:

1.Execute the equis.get_ids stored procedure to get a new LOGGER_ID, or add the station (DT_LOGGER row) in EQuIS Professional.

2.Set LIVE_DATA_SOURCE to NOAA-NCEI.

3.Set LOGGER_CODE to a station ID. A station ID can be searched for in the NOAA-NCEI station list at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/oa/global-historical-climatology-network/hourly/doc/ghcnh-station-list.txt.

For example, USW00023234 is the station ID for the San Francisco International Airport. You can find the country abbreviations at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/oa/global-historical-climatology-network/hourly/doc/ghcn-countries.txt.

4.Set STATUS_FLAG to 'A' to activate the logger.

 

 

Loading Data

 

The NOAA NCEI Agent can be run as a scheduled EQuIS Information Agent (EIA), at the desired frequency, to automatically load data as often as needed.

 

The NOAA NCEI Agent can also be run in EQuIS Professional or Enterprise (using the EZView widget) to load the data manually, without having to schedule an EIA.

 

The NOAA NCEI Agent will load data for all loggers with LIVE_DATA_SOURCE set to NOAA-NCEI. If the Date Range parameter is set to “Get all values from a logger’s most recent value till now”, the agent will retrieve values from a logger's site (DT_LOGGER.LOGGER_CODE) for the past one month. If data has been previously loaded for that logger, the agent will request data from the logger's most recent date (in DT_LOGGER_DATUM.DATUM_UTC_DT) until today's date.

 

The NOAA NCEI Agent allows the user to select the loggers and date range, and has the following input parameters:

•Logger(s) – Select the stations for which to load data. If no stations are selected, the agent will load data for all NOAA NCEI stations.

•Date Range – Select a date range; choose from recent, period, or start and end dates. The recent option works the same way as the NOAA NCEI Agent. If the period option is selected, a period must be specified in ISO-8601 duration format. If the start and end dates option is selected, start and end dates must be specified.

•Update existing values? – Check this box to update existing EQuIS Live data values.

 

Notes:

•The NOAA NCEI Agent gets the weather data from files like https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/oa/global-historical-climatology-network/hourly/access/by-year/2026/psv/GHCNh_USW00023234_2026.psv.

•The previous file is a pipe-separated value file and a full list of the available columns can be found at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/oa/global-historical-climatology-network/hourly/doc/ghcnh-columns.pdf

 

The NOAA NCEI Agent adds a DT_LOGGER_SERIES row for each of the following series. However, some of the stations may not have one or more of the series listed below, in which case those series will not be added.

 

SERIES_NAME

SERIES_UNIT

Description

ghcnh-columns.pdf

Air Temperature

degrees Celsius

The temperature of the air.

Mandatory ISD Data, index 12

Atmospheric Pressure

hectopascals

The air pressure relative to Mean Sea Level (MSL).

Mandatory ISD Data Section, index 30

Altimeter

hectopascals

The pressure value to which an aircraft altimeter is set so that it will indicate the altitude relative to mean sea level of an aircraft on the ground at the location for which the value was determined.

Additional ISD Data, index 138

Station Level Pressure

hectopascals

The atmospheric pressure at the observation point.

Additional ISD Data, index 24

Precipitation

May be different for different stations
(e.g., IN)

The hourly precipitation values and units.


Wind Direction

angular degrees

The angle, measured in a clockwise direction, between true north and the direction from which the wind is blowing.

Mandatory ISD Data, index 36

Wind Speed

m/s

The rate of horizontal travel of air past a fixed point.

Mandatory ISD Data, index 42

 

A series can then be activated or deactivated, by setting its STATUS_FLAG = "A" or "R", to start or stop (respectively) obtaining data for it. A series' SERIES_DESC may be changed, but not the SERIES_NAME or SERIES_UNIT; they uniquely identify the series.