NOAA Tides & Currents Scraper: Water Levels and Predictions

The NOAA tides and currents scraper pulls public CO-OPS tide predictions, observed water levels, and water-level station metadata. It is a free API scraper: no API key, no login, and a direct connection by default. Schedule a run and export to CSV, JSON, or Excel when you need a repeatable archive of the same stations.

San Francisco (9414290) is filled in so a first run returns today's six-minute predictions without extra setup.

Use cases

• Harbor planning: save predicted tide heights for a station before a job window
• Coastal monitoring: grab the latest observed water level, with NOAA's sigma and quality fields
• Station lookup: export the water-level catalog (ID, name, state, coordinates) and filter it to the gauges you care about
• Research archives: walk a date range one day at a time and stop at a row cap
• Scheduled feeds: run the same input on a timer and download CSV or Excel from the dataset

What data does this actor extract?

Data mode writes one row per prediction or water-level reading. Station mode writes one row per catalog station. Every row includes scrapedAt and sourceUrl.

{
  "t": "2026-10-11 00:00",
  "v": "0.151",
  "stationId": "9414290",
  "productName": "predictions",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-12T00:00:00+00:00",
  "sourceUrl": "https://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/datagetter?date=today&station=9414290&product=predictions&datum=MLLW&time_zone=gmt&units=metric&format=json"
}

Field	Type	Description
t	string	Time string from NOAA, unchanged
v	string	Value string from NOAA, metric, datum MLLW
stationId	string	CO-OPS station ID
stationName	string	Name from water-level metadata or the catalog
productName	string	predictions or water_level
sigma	string	Observed standard deviation (s), when present
dataFlags	string	Observed flag string (f), when present
qualityCode	string	Observed quality code (q), when present
latitude	string	Station latitude
longitude	string	Station longitude
stateCode	string	State or territory code from the catalog
timeZone	string	Station time zone name
shefCode	string	SHEF code
tidalStation	boolean	NOAA tidal flag
greatLakesStation	boolean	NOAA Great Lakes flag
detailUrl	string	Link to the station details document
scrapedAt	string	UTC timestamp added by the actor
sourceUrl	string	NOAA URL for the request
error	string	Present only when that request failed

Input

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	data	data for a time series, stations for the water-level catalog
stations	array	9414290	Station IDs. Empty in stations mode means the full catalog
product	string	predictions	predictions or water_level
beginDate	string	empty	First day, yyyyMMdd. Blank uses today or latest
endDate	string	empty	Last day, yyyyMMdd, inclusive
maxItems	integer	100	Row cap. Hard maximum 1000
timeoutSecs	integer	300	Stop starting new requests after this many seconds
requestTimeoutSecs	integer	30	Per-request HTTP timeout
proxyConfiguration	object	no proxy	Optional. Default is {"useApifyProxy": false}

Example input

{
  "mode": "data",
  "stations": ["9414290"],
  "product": "predictions",
  "beginDate": "20261011",
  "endDate": "20261011",
  "maxItems": 100,
  "timeoutSecs": 300,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 30,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false }
}

How a run walks NOAA

1. With no dates, predictions use today and water level uses latest available data.
2. With beginDate and endDate, each calendar day is processed individually. The span stops at 31 days.
3. Station mode extracts the full catalog of available water-level stations.
4. Requests execute smoothly with built-in retry handling for unexpected server delays or rate limit responses.
5. Rows are deduped by station, product, and timestamp (or station ID in the catalog). A failed request becomes an error row and the run continues until maxItems or timeoutSecs. 6.An empty series is logged and does not create an error row. An invalid station ID produces an error row.

Data source and licence

Values come from the NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) datagetter and metadata APIs. NOAA states that CO-OPS limits the volume of queries from a single customer when load is heavy. The NOS disclaimer says information on government servers is in the public domain unless annotated otherwise, and asks that attribution be given when NOS material is reproduced. Each row keeps the request URL in sourceUrl. This actor stays on the public endpoints above and does not use a proxy to get around those limits.

FAQ

Does the NOAA tides currents scraper need an API key? No. The calls used here are public. Leave the proxy off unless your own IP is blocked.

How many rows can one run save? maxItems defaults to 100 and will not go past 1000. A full prediction day for one station is about 240 six-minute points, so a cap of 100 stores the first part of that day.

What if the station ID is wrong? The actor writes one error row with the HTTP status and a short piece of the NOAA message, then moves on.

Can I export CSV or Excel? Yes. The output links point at the default dataset as JSON, CSV, and Excel.

Which products are included? Tide predictions and observed water level only. Wind and air temperature are not requested.

Changelog

• 1.0: predictions, latest water level, and the water-level station catalog, with day-by-day ranges, retries, and a row cap.

Integrations

Connect this actor to other apps with Apify integrations. Make, Zapier, Slack, Google Sheets, and webhooks can pick up the dataset when a run finishes.

Tide series stay easier to archive when the job repeats: https://bigibyte.com

Trademark Notice

NOAA Tides & Currents and related names, logos, and trademarks belong to their respective owners. Their use in this documentation is solely to identify the source of the data and does not imply affiliation, sponsorship, endorsement, or partnership.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or otherwise officially associated with NOAA Tides & Currents or its owners. All data is collected from publicly available sources. Users are responsible for complying with the source's terms of use, rate limits, and attribution or licensing requirements.

Is web scraping legal?

This Actor only collects publicly available data from NOAA Tides & Currents, mostly through its public API or feed, without logging in or bypassing any access controls. Scraping public data is generally legal, but how you use it matters:

• Personal data: If the results include personal data (for example names, emails, or profile details), laws such as the GDPR in the EU and the CCPA in California may apply. Only collect and store personal data when you have a legitimate reason.
• Copyright: Some content (articles, images, descriptions) may be protected by copyright. Do not republish full copyrighted content without permission.
• Terms of use: Respect the source's terms, stated rate limits, and any attribution or non-commercial-use requirements listed in the Data source and licence section.
• Legal advice: This is general information, not legal advice. If you're unsure, consult a lawyer.

To learn more, read Apify's guide: Is web scraping legal?