U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

SWPC Products and Data

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) provides multiple Space Weather Products including Forecasts, Reports, Summaries, Alerts, Models, and real-time data. NCEI archives some of SWPC data products for retrospective users.

Please note that many of the NCEI access links are anonymous FTP links, which may need to be opened with a separate application outside of your web browser. If asked for a login, select “Guest” or leave the username and password blank.


Example of WSA-ENLIL model output showing predicted solar wind conditions at Earth's orbit in December 2022.

Data Types

NCEI provides access to archived SWPC reports, forecasts and summaries via anonymous FTP. The latest real-time products, along with more information on each report are available at the corresponding "SWPC page" listed below:

D-Region Absorption Predictions (D-RAP)

D-Region Absorption Predictions (D-RAP), produced by SWPC. The D-RAP model is used as guidance to understand the HF radio degradation and blackouts this can cause. Data are available from 2012-01-01 to 2023-12-31.

WSA-Enlil Solar Wind Prediction

WSA-Enlil Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA)-Enlil is a large-scale, physics-based prediction model of the heliosphere, used by the SWPC to provide 1-4 day advance warning of solar wind structures and Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that cause geomagnetic storms. Data are available from 2013-11-19. 

U.S. Total Electron Content (US-TEC)

The U.S. Total Electron Content (US-TEC) product is designed to specify vertical and slant TEC over the Continental US (CONUS) in near real time. Data are available from 2016-01-01 to 2023-12-01.

NCEI provides access to archived SWPC Observations via anonymous FTP. The latest real-time observations  and more information on these products are available on their corresponding “SWPC page” listed below:

  • SWPC Solar Synoptic Maps: Daily product (1972 to present). The filenames use the format “boul_neutl_fd_YYYMMDD_HHMM.jpg". | SWPC page
  • Daily Geomagnetic Data: Yearly product  (1994 to 2011). The filenames use the format “yyyy_DGD.txt". Includes the daily 24-hour A index, eight 3-hourly K indices from the Fredericksburg (middle-latitude) and College (high-latitude) stations monitoring Earth's magnetic field and the estimated planetary 24-hour A index and eight 3-hourly K indices derived in real time from a network of western hemisphere ground-based magnetometers.
  • Daily Particle Data: Yearly summaries (1994 to 2012). Filename format “yyyy_DPD.txt". These data Include daily integrated particle fluxes measured by the primary GOES spacecraft at geosynchronous altitudes for: 
    • protons of energies >1 MeV, >10 MeV, and >100 MeV (in units of protons/sq cm/day/sr).
    • electrons, of energies > 2 MeV in units of electrons/sq                 cm/day/sr;
    • Neutron Monitor Percent of Background.

Missing proton and electron values are shown as -1.0e+05. Missing Neutron monitor data are shown as -1.00.

  • Daily Solar Data Yearly summary (1994 to 2011). The filenames use the format “yyyy_DSD.txt". They include daily values of the following parameters:
    • 10.7 cm radio flux: The 10.7 cm (2800 MHz) full Sun radio flux reported by the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory at Penticton, B.C., Canada on the date indicated. Measurements are made at approximately 2000UT. Values are in units of 10 E-22/Sq Wm/Hz and are not corrected for the variable Sun-Earth distance resulting from the eccentric orbit of the Earth around the Sun.
    • SESC Sunspot Number: The SESC sunspot number for the indicated date is from the daily Solar Region Summary issued by SESC. The SESC sunspot number is computed according to the Wolf Sunspot Number R=k (10g+s), where g is the number of sunspot groups (regions), s is the total number of individual spots in all the groups, and k is a variable scaling factor (usually <1) that indicates the combined effects of observing conditions, telescope, and bias of the solar observers. A sunspot number of zero indicates there were no visible sunspots on that date; a * indicates that no observations were taken. The sunspot region information used to compute the daily sunspot number incorporates reports from as many as six observatories. These reports are used to form a composite picture of each individual region, including sunspot number, area and classification, taking into account such factors as the time of observation and the quality of seeing. This composite information is the daily average obtained from the reporting observatories and may not represent the latest data. It is reported daily in the Solar Region Summary and listed in the Region Summary section of the Weekly.
    • Sunspot Area10e-6 Hemis: Sum of the corrected area of all observed sunspots, in units of millionths of the solar hemisphere.
    • Stanford Solar Mean Field: Daily values of the mean magnetic field of the Sun (in microTesla) observed by the Wilcox Solar Observatory (WSO/Stanford).
    • GOES X-ray bkgd: The daily average background x-ray flux as measured on the SWPC primary GOES satellite. Note: X-ray flux values below the B1 level can be erroneous. Energetic electron contamination of the x-ray sensors occurs. At times of high electron flux at geosynchronous altitude, the x-ray measurements in the low A-class range can be in error by 20-30%. Measurements taken during periods of low energetic electron fluxes are much more accurate.
    • Flares: The total number of optical and x-ray flares observed during the day 

Missing data is shown as -1, except X-ray Background Flux is shown as *.