NCDC GIS Portal

Visit the NCDC GIS data portal for the most up-to-date information on the WMS, WFS and KML capabilities of the IBTrACS data set.
IBTrACS data is available under "Current Events: Hurricanes" or here.

Line layer

The line layer are the lines extracted from the point layer (see below).

Line-layer caveats

Storms with only one location (that is, one reported position) can not define a line, so were dropped from the line-layer
The geospatial server does not allow lines to cross the dateline. Storm segments crossing the dateline were removed.
Lines need to have the same attributes for the entire line. Thus, very limited storm attributes are available for each line. Users should access the point data for the time varying storm attributes (central pressure, sustained wind, etc.)
Due to limits of line attributes, only the maximum intensity attained by each storm is available and shaded for each storm

Line-layer services

A shapefile (1.4 MB) of the line layer is available via FTP.

WMS

Sample WMS GetCapabilities:
http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/web/ibtracs/tracks/MapServer/WMSServer?request=GetCapabilities&service=WMS

Sample WMS GetMap request (same as image above):
http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/web/ibtracs/tracks/MapServer/WMSServer?VERSION=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetMap&CRS=CRS:84&BBOX=-180,-90,180,90&WIDTH=800&HEIGHT=400&LAYERS=0,1&STYLES=&EXCEPTIONS=application/vnd.ogc.se_xml&FORMAT=image/png&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&TRANSPARENT=TRUE

The WMS service allows the use of Styled Layer Descriptors (SLD). This allows the data to be filtered. We are developing an interactive display to allow custom filters. Some examples of what will be possible with SLDs include:

KML

After clicking the link below :

Enter a Document Name,
Select Layers [optional - if you select none, both will be included],
Choose the last "Layer Option": Vector layers as vectors and raster layers as images.
Click Generate KML button.
Open in Google Earth.

Note: tested with Google Earth Pro 4.3.7284.3916 (beta).
http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/rest/services/ibtracs/tracks/MapServer/generateKml

Point Layer

IBTrACS data was converted to OGC point layer data. These point data are voluminous (more than 220,000 points each with 35 attributes per point), so a line layer data was extracted to facilitate creating maps of the data.

Point-layer caveats

Points of the storm located directly on the dateline were dropped from the point layer as such data are not allowed by the geospatial database.

Point-layer services

A shapefile (7.6 MB) of the point layer is available via FTP.

WMS

Sample example WMS GetCapabilities:
http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/web/ibtracs/points/MapServer/WMSServer?request=GetCapabilities&service=WMS

Sample WMS GetMap (same as image above, takes a few minutes due to the volume of the IBTrACS points):
http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/web/ibtracs/points/MapServer/WMSServer?VERSION=1.3.0&REQUEST=GetMap&CRS=CRS:84&BBOX=-180,-90,180,90&WIDTH=800&HEIGHT=400&LAYERS=0,1&STYLES=&EXCEPTIONS=application/vnd.ogc.se_xml&FORMAT=image/png&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&TRANSPARENT=TRUE

WFS

Using ArcGIS Server 9.3 SP1 (the NCDC version), there is a bug that prevents the WFS 1.0.0 file from being read properly. This will be resolved soon. Check back often for updates.

      example WFS GetCapabilities request coming soon

      example WFS GetFeature request coming soon

KML

After clicking the link below :

Enter a Document Name,
Select Layers [optional - if you select none, both will be included],
Choose the last "Layer Option": Vector layers as vectors and raster layers as images.
Click Generate KML button.
Open in Google Earth.

Note: tested with Google Earth Pro 4.3.7284.3916 (beta).
http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/rest/services/ibtracs/points/MapServer/generateKml

More information

For more information on OGC services at NCDC, visit http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov.