Ncdc Noaa Gov Climate Data Online Web Services
62
AI ReadinessAI-Aware (B-)62/100
Official vendor OpenAPI document · agent-readyData EnrichmentData TransformationapiKey13 EndpointsREST
For Agents
Query NOAA historical weather and climate observations by station, location, dataset, and date range - including temperature, precipitation, and other measured data values.
Use for: I need to fetch daily temperature observations for a specific weather station, List all NOAA climate datasets available for download, Find weather stations within a U.S. ZIP code, Retrieve precipitation totals for January 2025 at station GHCND:USW00094728
Not supported: Does not handle weather forecasts, severe-weather alerts, or radar imagery - use for historical climate observations and station metadata only.
NOAA Climate Data Online (CDO) Web Services v2 provides programmatic access to weather and climate observations curated by the National Centers for Environmental Information. The API exposes 13 endpoints covering datasets, data categories, data types, location categories, locations, weather stations, and observed data values, allowing developers and analysts to pull historical climate records by station, location, date range, and data type. A `token` header issued by NOAA authenticates each request.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Climate Data Online Web Services to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Climate Data Online Web Services, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fncdc.noaa.gov%2Fncdc-noaa" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fncdc.noaa.gov%2Fncdc-noaa" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Climate Data Online Web Services API.
List available climate datasets such as Daily Summaries (GHCND) and Global Summary of the Month
Look up weather stations near a given FIPS code, ZIP code, or lat-lon bounding box
Retrieve observed data values filtered by dataset, station, data type, and date range
Browse data categories like temperature, precipitation, wind, and cloudiness
Resolve location categories (state, county, country) and their member locations
Inspect data type definitions including units of measurement and valid date ranges
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Climate Data Online Web Services API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Historical Weather Lookup for Insurance Claims
Insurers verify weather conditions on the date of a claim by querying NOAA station observations near the loss location. The CDO API returns daily summaries (precipitation, snowfall, max and min temperature) for specific stations, replacing manual weather-record requests. Each lookup completes in seconds rather than the hours required for paper certifications.
Call GET /data with datasetid=GHCND, stationid=GHCND:USW00094728, startdate=2025-01-15, enddate=2025-01-15 and return precipitation and max temperature
Climate Research and Trend Analysis
Researchers pull multi-decade climate normals and daily summaries to analyse temperature and precipitation trends across regions. The API supports location category filters (state, county) and date ranges that span the full archive, enabling reproducible studies without managing local NOAA mirrors.
List datasets via GET /datasets, then fetch monthly summaries for a state via GET /data with locationid set to the state's FIPS code
Renewable Energy Site Assessment
Solar and wind developers query NOAA stations near a candidate site to estimate average sunshine, wind, and precipitation patterns. The API's GET /stations endpoint filters by lat-lon extent, and GET /data returns historical observations that feed yield models. Replaces ad-hoc CSV downloads from the NOAA portal.
Search stations with extent=lat1,lon1,lat2,lon2 via GET /stations, then pull monthly wind data for the closest station
Agent-Driven Climate Q&A
An AI assistant answers questions like 'how much rain fell in Boston in January 2025?' by searching Jentic for the right NOAA endpoint, loading the schema, and executing the call. The token credential stays in your Jentic One instance, so the agent never sees the raw NOAA token.
Search Jentic for 'fetch noaa precipitation data', resolve to GET /data, and execute with the correct stationid and date range
Key Endpoints
13 endpoints — noaa climate data online (cdo) web services v2 provides programmatic access to weather and climate observations curated by the national centers for environmental information.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/datasets
List all available climate datasets
GET
/datasets/{datasetid}
Get a specific dataset by ID
GET
/stations
List weather stations with optional filters
GET
/locations
List locations (states, counties, ZIPs)
GET
/datatypes
List available data types
GET
/data
Get observed data values
GET
/datasets
List all available climate datasets
GET
/datasets/{datasetid}
Get a specific dataset by ID
GET
/stations
List weather stations with optional filters
GET
/locations
List locations (states, counties, ZIPs)
GET
/datatypes
List available data types
GET
/data
Get observed data values
Jentic AI Readiness Score
This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use.
C
Climate Data Online Web Services
- AI-Aware (B-)62/100
99
Foundational Compliance63
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility44
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience94
Agent Usability50
Security59
AI DiscoverabilityPowered by JenticScoring Framework 1.0.0 | Scoring Engine 0.4.0
Show dimension breakdown
99
Foundational Compliance
Base layer of spec validity and structural soundness.
Grade: A+Signals: 4
98%
Lint Results
Aggregated quality score from linter diagnostics, weighted by severity.
100%
Resolution Completeness
Percentage of `$ref` references that resolve successfully.
100%
Specification Validity
Checks whether the API description parses successfully and conforms to its declared specification (e.g., OpenAPI).
100%
Structural Integrity
Structural correctness score based on schema issues using logarithmic dampening.
63
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility
Clarity, completeness, and ingestion readiness for developers and tooling.
Grade: B-Signals: 4
0%
Example Density
How richly the API is illustrated with examples.
100%
Example Validity
Percentage of examples that conform to their schemas.
50%
Response Coverage
Percentage of operations with complete response definitions (success, client error, server error).
100%
Tooling Readiness
Health of API ingestion, bundling, and resolution within Jentic pipelines.
44
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience
Semantic breadth, depth, and agent comprehension for AI systems.
Grade: DSignals: 4
25%
Description Coverage
Coverage of descriptions across API elements.
0%
Error Standardization
Coverage of RFC 9457 Problem Details for error responses.
100%
OperationId Quality
Coverage, uniqueness, and casing consistency of operationIds for AI inference.
50%
Summary Coverage
Coverage of summaries across operations/tags/info.
94
Agent Usability
Functional utility, complexity comfort, and AI orchestration readiness.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
94%
Complexity Comfort
Agent comfort level based on API operational and structural complexity.
50
Security
Trust, risk posture, and security compliance.
Grade: C-Signals: 1
50%
Authentication Strength
Average quality of security schemes based on authentication method strength (weakest link for OAuth2).
59
AI Discoverability
Findability, semantic richness, and reasoning readiness.
Grade: C+Signals: 1
59%
Descriptive Richness
Clarity and depth of descriptions across API elements.
Score it yourself
Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required.
npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score <openapi-url>Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring Climate Data Online by hand means learning its token header auth on the ncei.noaa.gov host, mapping datasets, stations, and datatypes onto the /data call, and handling errors yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import Climate Data Online Web Services from the API Directory, store the token once, and your agent calls it.
Permission scoping
Climate Data Online takes datasetid, stationid, and date range as query parameters rather than in the URL path, so scope the agent to the operations it needs, such as reading /data and /stations. Every operation here is a read, so the agent retrieves observations and metadata and nothing that changes state.
Credential isolation
Your NOAA token is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected into the header at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'fetch precipitation data for a station', and Jentic returns GET /data with its input schema so the agent supplies datasetid, stationid, and date range without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Climate Data Online Web Services API through Jentic.
What authentication does the NOAA Climate Data Online API use?
The API uses a `token` header (security scheme `tokenAuth`) issued free of charge by NOAA at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token. Through Jentic, the token is stored in the encrypted vault and supplied at execution time - agents never see the raw token.
Can I retrieve daily temperature data for a specific station?
Yes. Call GET /data with datasetid=GHCND, the station's stationid (e.g., GHCND:USW00094728), a startdate and enddate, and optional datatypeid filters like TMAX, TMIN, or PRCP. Date ranges are limited to one year per request for the GHCND dataset.
What are the rate limits for the NOAA CDO API?
NOAA enforces 5 requests/second and 10,000 requests/day per token. Responses include the result count and offset/limit pagination - large queries should iterate using the limit (max 1,000) and offset parameters.
How do I find a weather station near a location through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'find NOAA weather stations near a location', load the schema for GET /stations, and execute with `extent` (lat1,lon1,lat2,lon2) or `locationid` (FIPS code). The response lists matching stations and their data coverage.
Is the NOAA Climate Data Online API free?
Yes. The API is provided by NOAA at no cost. A free token is required and can be requested at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the NOAA Climate Data Online API?
Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which operations and credentials the agent may use, so you can restrict it to only the endpoints it needs, such as GET /data for observations and GET /stations for station lookups, while withholding others like /datasets or /datatypes. Every operation on this API is read-only, and datasetid, stationid, and date range are passed as query parameters rather than in the URL path, so a scoped agent can retrieve climate observations and metadata but cannot change any state. Your NOAA token stays inside your Jentic One instance and is injected at execution time, never entering the agent's prompt or logs.
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