NOAA's CoastWatch Program makes data and imagery available from a variety of sensors and satellites. Deciding which satellite data to view or download depends on the type of information that is needed. The most commonly requested data are sea surface temperature, ocean surface winds, or ocean color.

NOAA CoastWatch data products are available in a variety of formats and not all formats are supported by commercial software. A variety of software programs and utilities compatible with CoastWatch formats have been listed here to assist users in utilizing CoastWatch products.

CoastWatch data and imagery products are distributed in several formats:

• CoastWatch HDF
• GeoTIFF
• PNG
• ESRI shapefiles, where applicable.