Buoy Report Screensaver
The Buoy Report screensaver is a retro nautical panel of live readings from a NOAA ocean buoy — wave height, swell period, water and air temperature, wind and pressure — gathered from the key-less NDBC network by the pipeline. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
How the Buoy Report screensaver works
A background pipeline reads the real-time report from your chosen NOAA NDBC buoy, far out at sea, with no key.
The saver shows the significant wave height with an animated wave whose size matches it, plus the dominant swell period.
Water and air temperature, barometric pressure, and the wind direction and speed are laid out on a retro instrument panel.
Readings refresh on a schedule, and any sensor that's offline simply shows a dash.
A worked example
For the San Francisco buoy you might see 2.1 m @ 11 s swell, a 14°C sea, the wind needle pointing from the northwest, and the barometer steady — a real snapshot from a buoy bobbing miles offshore.
Settings & tips
- Buoy chooses which NOAA station to read.
- Accent recolours the water and instruments.
- Run
automation/run.py buoyon your pipeline machine to refresh the readings.
Frequently asked questions
- Are the readings real?
- Yes. They come straight from NOAA NDBC buoys reporting in real time, refreshed by the pipeline.
- Why is a value sometimes a dash?
- Buoys occasionally have a sensor offline. When a reading is missing the panel shows a dash rather than a wrong number.
- Why does it use a pipeline?
- The NDBC data files aren't readable directly from a browser, so a small background script fetches them and saves a snapshot the saver loads.
- Which buoys can I pick?
- A built-in set including stations off North Carolina, San Francisco, Boston, Hawaii and the Gulf of Mexico.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.