Overview
NOAA's Climate Data Online (CDO) API requires a personal token (NOAA also calls this a "token key"). One token unlocks every endpoint — there are no per-endpoint scopes.
Setup guide
Request a token
Go to https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token and submit your email address. Per NOAA's portal: "An email will be sent containing your CDO web services token." NOAA's docs do not state token expiration, rotation, or revocation behavior.
Add it to Ingest
In the Ingest UI under Connectors → NOAA Climate Data, paste the token. It is stored under the secret key token and sent on every request as the HTTP header token: <your-token> (NOAA does not use Authorization: Bearer).
Mind the limits
Per NOAA's v2 docs:
- 5 requests per second per token. The connector throttles to this automatically.
- 10,000 requests per day per token. For high-volume backfills of
data, reducedaily_lookbackso each run fetches a smaller window.
HTTP 429 is retried with backoff. HTTP 401/403 is treated as fatal — usually means a typo or revoked token. (These behaviors come from the connector's error_handling config, not from NOAA's docs.)
Pick endpoints
You don't need to enable everything. A common starting set is datasets, datatypes, stations, and data. Lookup endpoints (datacategories, locationcategories, locations) are small and cheap to leave on. Each endpoint doc lists when it's worth turning on.
Supported streams
7 endpoints are available out of the box. Each endpoint syncs into its own Iceberg table in Snowflake.
| Endpoint | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| data data | Get climate data observations | – |
| datacategories datacategories | Get groupings of data types | – |
| datasets datasets | Get available datasets | – |
| datatypes datatypes | Get available data types | – |
| locationcategories locationcategories | Get location categories | – |
| locations locations | Get available locations | – |
| stations stations | Get weather stations | – |
Authentication
- Auth type
- API Key
- Sent as header
token- Provider docs
- www.ncdc.noaa.gov ↗
Performance & limits
- Rate limit
- 5 req/sec, 10,000 req/day per token