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Tides and storm surge — Charleston, SC

Find tide-gauge water levels, predictions, and meteorological observations for a specific U.S. coastal station.

What this teaches

  • Scoping to a specific point with a small bbox
  • Reading column_stats_summary for a multi-variable station
  • The COOPS collection's asset structure (water level CSVs, hourly height, high/low predictions)

Source used: COOPS (NOAA CO-OPS Tides and Currents)

Prompt

Find the NOAA CO-OPS tide gauge at Charleston, SC. Show me the variables
it records, recent water level extremes, and the asset URLs to download
the water level time series.

Transcript

1. Scope to the Charleston coast

search_datasets(
  collections = "COOPS",
  bbox = "-80.2,32.5,-79.5,33.0",
  limit = 3
)

Returns one item: coops_8665530 — CO-OPS Station 8665530 (Charleston, SC).

The column_stats_summary shows:

Variable Min Max
Water Level -0.352 m 2.10 m
Mean Sea Level 0.428 m 1.325 m
Air Temperature -6.1 °C 23.8 °C
Water Temperature 6.7 °C 13.8 °C
Wind Speed 0.0 12.8 m/s
Wind Gust 0.0 20.7 m/s
Barometric Pressure 1006.4 1031.9 mbar
Wind Direction 0° 360°

Eight variables, 7,394 observations summarized, source URL https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/map/index.html?id=8665530.

2. Get the asset URLs

get_item(collection = "COOPS", item_id = "coops_8665530")

Real asset list — 26 keys. Each href points at the CO-OPS data API. Excerpt:

Key Format URL
water_level_csv CSV https://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/datagetter?station=8665530&product=water_level&format=csv&time_zone=gmt&units=metric&datum=MLLW&date=recent&application=AQUAVIEW_STAC_Indexer
hourly_height_csv CSV same base, product=hourly_height
high_low_csv CSV same base, product=high_low
predictions_csv CSV same base, product=predictions
wind_csv CSV same base, product=wind

Plus parallel JSON / XML variants for every product, an overview PNG preview, a thumbnail, and a column_stats JSON.

Item-level temporal extent: start_datetime 1899-09-13, end_datetime 2026-02-26 19:27 UTC — the station has 127 years of records.

Result the agent gave

"NOAA CO-OPS station 8665530 (Charleston, SC) is at 32.78°N, 79.92°W. The catalog reports the station has continuous data from 1899-09-13 to 2026-02-26, indexed by AQUAVIEW from https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/map/index.html?id=8665530.

Variables (8 with summary stats): Water Level (-0.35 to 2.10 m), Mean Sea Level (0.43 to 1.33 m), Air Temperature (-6.1 to 23.8 °C), Water Temperature (6.7 to 13.8 °C), Wind Speed (0 to 12.8 m/s), Wind Gust (0 to 20.7 m/s ≈ 46 mph), Wind Direction (0–360°), Barometric Pressure (1006.4 to 1031.9 mbar). The 2.10 m water level is consistent with a major storm-surge event.

Download URLs (CSV, recent 72 h): - Water Level: https://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/datagetter?station=8665530&product=water_level&format=csv&time_zone=gmt&units=metric&datum=MLLW&date=recent - Hourly Height: same URL with product=hourly_height - High/Low Tide Times: product=high_low - Tide Predictions: product=predictions - Wind / Air Pressure / Air Temp / Water Temp: change product= accordingly

For specific date ranges (e.g., a hurricane window), swap date=recent for begin_date=YYYYMMDD&end_date=YYYYMMDD in any of the URLs above."

Variations

  • Different station: change bbox — for The Battery, NY use -74.05,40.65,-74.0,40.75.
  • Region survey: drop bbox, use q = "tide gauge Florida" to scan the whole state.
  • Storm-day data: combine with datetime = "2024-09-26T00:00:00Z/2024-09-29T23:59:59Z" (Hurricane Helene approach) for surge analysis.
  • Predictions only: filter assets to high_low_* keys after get_item.