---
name: uscg-navcen-maritime-safety-information-ingestion
description: "How to get USCG NAVCEN Maritime Safety Information data into a pandas DataFrame and Parquet: access, the request, the format, limits, quirks and terms."
---

# Poll a NAVCEN Local Notices to Mariners RSS feed into pandas

Source entry: https://signal-lab-jet.vercel.app/datasets/uscg-navcen-maritime-safety-information
Provider: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/
Checked against the provider's documentation: 2026-11-05

## Access
- No account or key. RSS feeds are listed on navcen.uscg.gov/subscribe-email-rss-feeds.
- A free GovDelivery email subscription is also offered for the same topics.

## Request
```bash
curl -s 'https://public.govdelivery.com/topics/USDHSCG_111/feed.rss'
```

## Format
RSS 2.0 XML with item title, pubDate, guid and link per Local Notice to Mariners update.

## Load into pandas and Parquet
Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.
```python
"""NAVCEN Local Notices to Mariners RSS feed -> pandas -> Parquet. No key."""
import requests
import feedparser
import pandas as pd

URL = "https://public.govdelivery.com/topics/USDHSCG_111/feed.rss"
r = requests.get(URL, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
feed = feedparser.parse(r.content)
df = pd.DataFrame([{"title": e.title, "published": e.published, "link": e.link} for e in feed.entries])
df.to_parquet("navcen_lnm_feed.parquet", index=False)
print(len(df), "items;", df["title"].iloc[0] if len(df) else None)

```
Run by us on 2026-11-05 (python 3 | pandas | pyarrow | requests | feedparser). Result: Fetched the Seventeenth Coast Guard District LNM feed (USDHSCG_111) on 2026-11-05; most recent item was a weekly Arctic District LNM-availability notice.

## Limits
- Each district/topic is a separate feed URL; list them from the subscribe-email-rss-feeds page.
- History depth is whatever GovDelivery currently retains per feed; not a full archive.

## Quirks
- Feeds are hosted on public.govdelivery.com, not navcen.uscg.gov itself.
- navcen.uscg.gov pages return HTTP 403 to requests without a browser-like User-Agent header.

## Terms and attribution
- No separate data licence is stated on the checked NAVCEN pages; this is a US Coast Guard (DHS) public safety-information site.
- Terms page: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/

## Sources
- https://navcen.uscg.gov/subscribe-email-rss-feeds: "Navigation Center RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds for various topics"
- https://navcen.uscg.gov/msib: "District/Sector MSIBs: U.S. Coast Guard MSIBs issued by a District or local Sector/Captain of the Port to communicate region- or port-specific maritime information, such as local safety zones, waterway restrictions, marine events, hazards, and enforcement guidance."

## Help improve this skill
Missing a source, or see something to improve? Call the MCP tool suggest_source or feedback (or POST /api/suggest or /api/feedback). Reviewed ideas: https://signal-lab-jet.vercel.app/agent-suggestions

Information for educational purposes only. Free tiers, limits and licenses belong to the providers and may change; check the provider's own terms before using the data.