NOAA Tides & Currents Stations Scraper

Extract metadata for 3,400+ NOAA Tides & Currents observation stations across the United States and territories — including station ID, name, coordinates, state, station type, and timezone references. Optionally enrich each station with the latest observed water level reading (referenced to MLLW datum).

This Actor wraps the public NOAA Tides & Currents MDAPI and Datagetter endpoints. Data is sourced from the NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) and is updated continuously as new readings come in from physical stations along U.S. coastlines, the Great Lakes, and Pacific/Caribbean territories.

Features

• All NOAA station types — tide predictions, water levels, currents, current predictions
• State filtering — narrow to one state (e.g. FL, CA, WA)
• Latest water levels — optionally pull the most recent observed water level (feet, MLLW) per station
• Geocoded — every record includes latitude/longitude for mapping
• Station page links — direct deep-link to the official NOAA station page

Output fields

Field	Description
stationId	NOAA station identifier (e.g. 8454000)
name	Station name (e.g. Providence)
state	Two-letter state code
type	Station type (tide, water level, etc.)
latitude / longitude	Geo-coordinates
referenceId	Reference station ID for tide subordinates
timeMeridian / timeZoneCorr	Local time references
latestWaterLevelFeet	Latest observed water level (MLLW datum, ft) — when enabled
latestWaterLevelTimeGmt	Timestamp of the latest reading (GMT)
stationPageUrl	Link to the NOAA station home page
metadataUrl	API URL to full station metadata

Use cases

• Maritime operations — pull station inventories for port operators, dredging companies, USCG support contractors
• Climate research — identify coastal monitoring sites by region for sea-level rise studies
• Tide-dependent businesses — fishing charters, harbor pilots, coastal surveyors integrating real-time tide data
• Insurance & risk modeling — flood-zone underwriting using authoritative tide gauge locations

How to use

1. Set stationType to the dataset you want (default tidepredictions).
2. Optionally filter by stateFilter (two-letter code).
3. Toggle includeLatestWaterLevel to enrich each station with its newest observation.
4. Set maxResults to cap the run (default 1000, max 5000).

Pricing

Pay-per-result at $0.003/record. A nationwide tide-predictions pull (~3,400 records) costs around $10. Apify compute cost is minimal — most runs finish in under 2 minutes without water-level enrichment.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? The NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS), a U.S. federal agency. Data is in the public domain.

Is real-time water level data available? Yes — enable includeLatestWaterLevel. This adds one HTTPS call per station, so large pulls take longer.

Are predictions included? This Actor returns station metadata. Tide predictions for specific dates are a separate NOAA endpoint; let us know if you need that variant.

Legal

NOAA data is in the public domain under U.S. federal policy. This Actor only accesses publicly published endpoints and stores no personal data. Use complies with NOAA Acceptable Use guidelines.