1. Documentation
2. Wave
3. Virtual Buoy Data Downloads
4. US West Coast Virtual Buoy Wave Data

US West Coast Virtual Buoy Wave Data (/api/wave/v2/wave/us-west-coast-virtual-buoy-download)

Collect and download, as CSV, a configurable set of wave data fields from virtual buoys.

This API is capable of creating very large downloadable archives. Unlike a typical API, the response to this provides a request acknowledgement. The real work of creating the requested downloadable archive will continue to run on the server side. When complete, and email will be sent to the email address provided in the initial request with a link to a file to download. In addition to this two step workflow, there is also an option for users who wish to download a single CSV file in direct response to an API request. The .csv format may be used to download a CSV directly. This feature is restricted to use with only a single POINT, for a single YEAR at a time.

Request URL

GET|POST /api/wave/v2/wave/us-west-coast-virtual-buoy-download.format?parameters

Request Parameters

NOTE: when using POST to submit a request the api_key must still be included as a query parameter in the url. All other parameters may be included in a POST request as part of the payload.

Response Fields

The response is composed of service-related informational fields and the results of the data query.

Data File Format

Generated data files are formatted in accordance with the Standard Time Series Data File Format. This file format has been developed to support SAM and other NREL models and is documented fully in this PDF. More information on SAM file formats available on the SAM weather page.

Examples

JSON Output Format

{
    "inputs": {
        "body": {},
        "params": {},
        "query": {
            "names": "2010",
            "utc": "true",
            "leap_day": "true",
            "interval": "180",
            "email": "user@company.com",
            "wkt": "POINT (-124.728 48.494)"
        }
    },
    "metadata": {
        "version": "2.0.0",
        "resultset": {
            "count": 1
        }
    },
    "status": 200,
    "outputs": {
        "message": "File generation in progress. An email will be sent to user@company.com when the download is ready.",
        "downloadUrl": "https://mapfiles.nrel.gov/data/wave/f3a8731d7d677f56ebb174e278f6e53e.zip"
    },
    "errors": []
}

CSV Output Format

Direct streaming of CSV data is supported for single location, single year only. The following response example is truncated after the first few rows of data.

Source,Location ID,Jurisdiction,Latitude,Longitude,Time Zone,Local Time Zone,Distance to Shore,Energy Period,Maximum Energy Direction,Mean Wave Direction,Mean Zero-Crossing Period,Omni-Directional Wave Power,Peak Period,Significant Wave Height,Spectral Width,Water Depth,Version
NSRDB,0,b'Washington',48.494,-124.728,0,-8,10718.147,s,deg,deg,s,W/m,s,m,-,257,v1.0.0
Year,Month,Day,Hour,Minute,Energy Period,Maximum Energy Direction,Mean Wave Direction,Mean Zero-Crossing Period,Omni-Directional Wave Power,Peak Period,Significant Wave Height,Spectral Width
1999,1,1,1,0,9.62511920928955,7.5,15.7635498046875,8.485738754272461,32021.865234375,11.013216018676758,2.9901134967803955,0.333930641412735
1999,1,1,2,0,9.606493949890137,7.5,15.34747314453125,8.467731475830078,31930.125,11.013216018676758,2.989302396774292,0.3332808315753937
1999,1,1,3,0,9.575942039489746,7.5,14.9296875,8.431180000305176,30901.494140625,11.013216018676758,2.949445962905884,0.33471956849098206
1999,1,1,4,0,9.545754432678223,7.5,14.41656494140625,8.402557373046875,29717.4140625,10.010009765625,2.898984909057617,0.33521780371665955

POST request example in Python

import requests

url = "https://developer.nrel.gov/api/wave/v2/wave/us-west-coast-virtual-buoy-download.json?api_key=yourapikeygoeshere"

payload = "full_name=Sample+User&email=user@company.com&affiliation=Test+Organization&reason=Example&mailing_list=true&wkt=POINT (-124.728 48.494)&names=2010&utc=true&leap_day=true"

headers = {
    'content-type': "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
    'cache-control': "no-cache"
}

response = requests.request("POST", url, data=payload, headers=headers)

print(response.text)

Rate Limits

Rate limits for this application are significantly less than the standard rate limits for developer.nrel.gov. This decrease in the limit is required as the data provided through this service is significantly more computationally intensive to generate and provide. These rate limits are carefully calculated to allow all users the maximum throughput that our servers can sustain.

There are several levels of rate limiting for this service. The first limit determines how many requests a given user can make per 24 hour period. For requests utilizing the .csv format this rate limit is set at 5000 a day at a frequency of no more than 1 per second. For all other requests this limit is set at 1000 requests per day at a frequency of no more than 1 every 2 seconds.

Secondly each user is limited to 20 in-flight requests at any given time.

In addition, the service has a fail-safe mechanism to prevent significant performance decreases that can be caused by unexpectedly high usage of the service. This limit will cause the service to stop accepting requests when the queue reaches a point where additional requests will significantly lower server performance. When this limit is hit, the service will error with a message describing that the request queue is full.

For some tips and tricks to maximize data downloads please read the guide here.

Errors

Standard errors may be returned. In addition, the following service-specific errors may be returned: