Where can I find out what stations are active and what data each station has available?

The active stations xml file is a collection of active stations (marked as established by the NDBC Data Assembly Center). TAO stations are excluded. Each station has an indicator showing whether the elevation, meteorological data, single point or profile currents data, water quality data, or DART data are available.

The following is an example station as shown in the active stations xml file:

<station id="44060" lat="41.263" lon="-72.067" elev="0" name="Eastern Long Island Sound" owner="MYSOUND" met="y" currents="n" waterquality="n" dart="n"/>

These are the descriptions of each part of the station entry:

id - WMO ID of the station.
lat - Signed decimal degree value of the latitude of the station. Negative numbers represent the southern hemisphere.
lon - Signed decimal degree value of the longitude of the station. Negative numbers represent the western hemisphere.
elev - Station elevation, when present, is reported in meters above mean sea level.
name - Descriptive name of the station.
owner - Name of the station owner/operator.
met - Indicator that the station has reported meteorological data in the past 8 hours.
currents - Indicator that the station has reported single point or profile currents data in the past 8 hours.
waterquality - Indicator that the station has reported water temperature, salinity and/or ocean chemistry data in the past 8 hours.
dart - Indicator that the station has reported water level (tsunami) data in the past 24 hours.