Get Involved
Get Involved

Land-based high-frequency radars (HF radar) map ocean surface currents in near real-time. Data are used to:

  1.  Reduce search and rescue area for the U.S. Coast Guard
  2.  Provide emergency managers transport information for oil spill or harmful algal bloom response
  3.  Identify fish larvae transport
  4.  Support model validation

Need more information? Please see description of What is High Frequency (HF) Radar? from NOAA CO-OPS and the IOOS HF Radar resource pages.

SECOORA funds the following HF Radar installations:

Operator Type Code Lat Lon MHz
UNC/CSI CODAR DUCK 36.2 -75.8 5
UNC/CSI CODAR HATY 35.3 -75.5 5
UNC CODAR CORE 34.8 -76.4 5
           
USC WERA CSW 33.9 -78.0 8
USC WERA GTN 33.3 -79.2 8
           
SkIO WERA CAT 31.7 -81.1 8
SkIO WERA JEK 31.1 -81.4 8
           
UM WERA STF 26.1 -80.1 12
UM WERA VIR 25.8 -80.1 12
UM WERA CDN 25.7 -80.1 16
UM WERA NKL TBD TBD TBD
           
USF CODAR RDSR 27.8 -82.8 5
USF CODAR VENI 27.1 -82.5 5
USF CODAR NAPL 26.2 -81.8 5
USF WERA FDS 27.6 -82.7 13
USF WERA VEN 27.1 -82.5 13
           
FAU WERA TBD 28.4 -80.6 13
FAU WERA TBD 27.8 -80.4 13

There are other HF Radar stations in the region that were funded externally:

Operator Type Code Lat Lon MHz
UNC/CSI WERA OCRA 35.1 -80.0 13
           
SkIO/UNC WERA BUX 35.3 -75.5 13
SkIO/UNC WERA FRIS 35.2 -75.6 13
SkIO/UNC WERA SLVO 35.5 -75.5 13
           
FAU CODAR HAUL 25.9 -80.1 13
FAU CODAR HILL 26.3 -80.1 13

 

Data

All data from the SECOORA HF Radar stations are submitted the the IOOS HF Radar Data Assembly Center (aka HF Radar DAC). From there the data is made available through:

SECOORA HF Radar Data Server

Quasi-real-time radial data in the LLUV/RUV format from HF Radars (both CODAR and WERA) in the SECOORA region. The HF Radar data is indexed by station “Code” as found in the Code column from the above tables. Use this link to download ideal and measured HF Radar data. 

HF Radar DAC THREDDS Server

Hourly, Monthly, and Annual Gridded Surface Current Totals produced by the DAC for 5 different regions are available on this THREDDS server. Direct links to the HF Radar data for the southeast are provided as follows:

NDBC THREDDS Server

Hourly Gridded Surface Current Totals for 4 different regions are provided on the NDBC THREDDS Server. A direct link to the HF Radar data for the southeast is provided as follows:

NCEI Totals in netCDF format

This is the archive of the gridded totals products from the above listings. It is the only place to download the individual files for each aggregated product.

  • netCDF File Listing – Southeast US data is available in the “USEGC” folders (US East and Gulf Coasts).

NCEI Radials in LLUV format

This is the archive of radial data from individual stations in the LLUV format. It is used as input to the gridded totals products listed above. It can take 6 months to a year for data to appears at NCEI after submission to the IOOS DAC.

  • LLUV File Listing – Data is organized by station code, see the tables above for the SECOORA station codes.

 

Resources

Radiowave Operators Working Group (ROWG)

Note: An account is required for access to the ROWG website. Please request an account using the above link.

Technical Resources: https://github.com/rowg

The ROWG Charter:

  1.  To foster collaboration between new and experienced HF radar operators
  2.  To develop procedures governing HF radar operations including:
    • Site logistics.
    • Processing to component vectors.
    • Total vector products and data management.
  3.  To provide recommendations to users, developers, manufacturers, and program managers.

National HF RADAR Network Gateway

HFRadar Network (HFRNet) is used to manage and distribute, in near-realtime, ocean surface currents measured by a distributed network of shore-based HF radar systems. HFRNet provides reliable data telemetry, archiving, and integrated processing for a growing list of near real-time products in a scaleable manner for a growing user community supported by the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS).