buoyant 0.5.0

Images

Some buoys have cameras! If the buoy doesn’t have an active camera, a placeholder image provided by the NBDC will be returned.

station = Buoy(41009)

station.image_url
# 'http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/images/buoycam/Z14C_2014_11_01_2200.jpg'

# Save image as a file 'out.jpg'
station.write_image('out.jpg')

# Get raw image as a BytesIO object (see https://docs.python.org/2/library/io.html)
station.image
# <_io.BytesIO object>

station.url
# 'http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41009'

Measurement metadata

The occassional buoy reports metadata about its measurements. The Buoy object has a meta attribute with this data, if any.

# Buoy in the Frying Pan Shoals, NC
frying_pan = Buoy(41013)

frying_pan.pressure
# 30.1

frying_pan.meta['pressure']
# {'tendency': 'steady'}

No data

Sometimes buoys don’t have recent data. You’ll be able to tell two ways. First, the Buoy object won’t have many attributes. Second, there will be a message. It will say ‘No data’.

station = Buoy('ANRN6')
station.message
# 'No data'

Measurements included

Any measurements reported in the NBDC’s XML api are included in a Buoy object. Read about the meaning of the different measurements.

Measurements often included (the text in parentheses is the one used on the NBDC’s measurement descriptions page):

• air_temp (ATMP)

• average_period (APD)

• dominant_period (DPD)

• mean_wave_direction (Spectral wave direction)

• water_temp (WTMP)

• wave_height (WVHT)

• wind_direction (WDIR)

• wind_gust (GST)

• wind_speed (WSPD)

• datetime

• dewpoint (DEWP)

• lat (latitude)

• lon (longitude)

• pressure (PRES)

Water quality data isn’t included in the XML data source. Neither is the elevation of the station or the location of the instruments relative to the station.

XML

Get the raw XML, if you like XML for some reason. Maybe the package is missing something? If so, submit an issue or pull request!

soul = Buoy('13010')
soul.xml
'''<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<observation id="13010" name="Soul" lat="-0.01" lon="0.00">
  <datetime>2014-12-16T02:00:00UTC</datetime>
  <winddir uom="degT">190</winddir>
  <windspeed uom="kt">9.9</windspeed>
  <airtemp uom="F">78.8</airtemp>
  </observation>'''

Compatibility

Buoyant is compatible with Python 2 and 3.

License

Buoyant is licensed under the GPL.