NOAA Marine Conditions, Tides, Sea Water Temp & Currents API

An autonomous, production-ready Apify Actor that extracts real-time and forecasted oceanographic conditions from official NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) coastal observation stations.

Query by GPS coordinates (automatic nearest station discovery), station ID, or city/harbor name (e.g. Miami, Key West, San Francisco, Seattle, Honolulu, Boston).

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🌊 Features

• Real-Time Sea Water Temperature: Instant surface water temperature in Celsius (°C) or Fahrenheit (°F) with daily minimum & maximum tracking.
• High & Low Tide Predictions: Accurate daily High (H) and Low (L) tide times, water heights (MLLW datum), and automatic detection of the next upcoming tide.
• Water Level & Surge: Real-time water height observations against standard nautical chart datums.
• Coastal Wind & Meteorology: Wind speed (m/s or knots), wind direction (degrees & cardinal), gust speeds, and air temperature.
• Nearest Station Auto-Discovery: Provide any {"lat": 25.76, "lon": -80.19} pair and the Actor automatically finds and queries the closest active NOAA ocean station within your chosen search radius.
• Agent-Ready & Structured: Clean, normalized JSON output designed for AI agents, travel platforms, diving/surfing apps, and maritime logistics.

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📥 Input Parameters

Field	Type	Default	Description
locations	Array	["Miami, FL", "Key West, FL", "San Francisco, CA"]	List of locations to query. Accepts City/Harbor strings, Station IDs (e.g. "8723214"), or GPS coordinate objects {"lat": 25.76, "lon": -80.19}.
products	Array	["water_temperature", "tides", "water_level", "wind", "air_temperature"]	Specific data products to retrieve.
units	String	"metric"	"metric" (°C, meters, m/s) or "english" (°F, feet, knots).
timeZone	String	"gmt"	"gmt" (UTC) or "lst_ldt" (Local Standard / Daylight Time).
date	String	"today"	"today", "latest", or "YYYYMMDD" date.
maxDistanceKm	Integer	100	Max search distance in km for nearest station discovery.
includeRawData	Boolean	false	Include 6-minute raw time-series data points.

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📤 Output Format

{
  "station": {
    "id": "8723214",
    "name": "Virginia Key, Biscayne Bay",
    "state": "FL",
    "lat": 25.7314,
    "lon": -80.1619,
    "distanceKm": 4.5,
    "timezone": "EST",
    "noaaStationUrl": "https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=8723214"
  },
  "units": "Metric (°C, m, m/s)",
  "timeZone": "gmt",
  "queryDate": "today",
  "currentConditions": {
    "waterTemperature": {
      "value": 31.6,
      "unit": "°C",
      "timestamp": "2026-08-20 11:06",
      "minToday": 31.2,
      "maxToday": 31.8
    },
    "wind": {
      "speed": 4.2,
      "directionDeg": 110,
      "directionCard": "ESE",
      "gust": 5.6,
      "unit": "m/s",
      "timestamp": "2026-08-20 11:06"
    },
    "airTemperature": {
      "value": 29.4,
      "unit": "°C",
      "timestamp": "2026-08-20 11:06"
    }
  },
  "tides": {
    "datum": "MLLW",
    "highTides": [
      { "time": "2026-08-20 07:02", "height": 0.605 },
      { "time": "2026-08-20 19:52", "height": 0.608 }
    ],
    "lowTides": [
      { "time": "2026-08-20 00:59", "height": 0.18 },
      { "time": "2026-08-20 13:28", "height": 0.099 }
    ],
    "nextTide": {
      "type": "Low Tide",
      "time": "2026-08-20 13:28",
      "height": 0.099
    },
    "totalTideEvents": 4
  },
  "waterLevel": {
    "currentHeight": 0.35,
    "unit": "m",
    "datum": "MLLW",
    "timestamp": "2026-08-20 11:06"
  },
  "status": "SUCCESS",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-08-20T11:10:00.000Z"
}

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🤖 AI Agent Integration (LLM Function Calling)

This Actor is pre-optimized for consumption by LLMs and Autonomous Agents:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

const run = await client.actor('your-username/noaa-marine-conditions-tides-api').call({
  locations: [{ lat: 25.7617, lon: -80.1918 }],
  products: ['water_temperature', 'tides'],
  units: 'metric',
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items[0].currentConditions.waterTemperature);

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💰 Unit Economics & Monetization

• Pricing Model: Pay Per Event ($0.003 per queried location/station)
• External Cost: $0.00 (Official NOAA open data, public domain)
• Compute Runtime: < 400ms (~0.00008 Apify CU)
• Gross Margin: > 96%

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📄 License & Attribution

Data sourced from NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS). Public domain US Government data. Actor developed autonomously under Apache-2.0.