Live Buoy Conditions
Real-time wind, wave, and water temp straight from NOAA's buoy network — 111 stations from Maine to Texas. This shows what the ocean is doing right now — pair it with the NWS marine forecast for tomorrow's outlook, and use this to sanity-check the forecast against reality on the way out the door.
How to read it
Wave height and period come straight off the buoy's motion sensor — a 3 ft, 8-second sea is a lot friendlier than 3 ft at 4 seconds. The big number uses dominant period (the strongest wave energy, i.e. the main swell you'll feel); average period, shown just below it, blends in the wind chop on top — a big gap between the two (say, dominant 9s but average 4s) means there's a confused mix of swell and chop, not clean groundswell. Wind speed and direction are measured at the buoy, which for offshore stations is a solid proxy for what you'll actually feel once you clear the inlet. The trend arrows compare the newest reading against the oldest one in the last several hours of data, so you can tell if it's building or laying down, not just what it is at this exact minute.
The "go / no-go" line below is a rough, general-purpose rule of thumb for a 25–35 ft offshore center console — not a substitute for your own judgment about your boat, your crew, and the actual forecast. Not every buoy carries a wave sensor; a lot of the nearshore, bay, and inlet stations report wind and water temp only, which still matters, but won't get a full sea-state read.