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Full catalog/OFS
OFS·dataset

Local US harbor and bay water forecasts (NOAA)

NOAA Operational Forecast System (OFS)
atmosphere NOAA NOAA active
In plain English

What it measures. Short-term forecasts of water levels, currents, and conditions in specific U.S. bays, harbors, and the Great Lakes, capturing changes from wind, pressure, and river flow that simple tide tables miss.

How it's made. NOAA runs a network of local hydrodynamic models that produce near-present analyses and forecasts out to roughly two to five days.

How & where you'd use it. Mariners use this region-by-region guidance to navigate ports and channels safely, beyond what standard tide predictions can tell them.

What's measured

aws-pdsclimatecoastaldisaster responseenvironmentalmeteorologicaloceanswaterweather

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span— → ongoing

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

ANNOUNCEMENTS: NOS OFS Version Updates and Implementation of Upgraded Oceanographic Forecast Modeling Systems for Lakes Superior and Ontario; Effective October 25, 2022}(https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/pdf2/scn22-91_nos_loofs_lsofs_v3.pdf) For decades, mariners in the United States have depended on NOAA's Tide Tables for the best estimate of expected water levels. These tables provide accurate predictions of the astronomical tide (i.e., the change in water level due to the gravitational effects of the moon and sun and the rotation of the Earth); however, they cannot predict water-level changes due to wind, atmospheric pressure, and river flow, which are often significant. The National Ocean Service (NOS) has the mission and mandate to provide guidance and information to support navigation and coastal needs. To support this mission, NOS has been developing and implementing hydrodynamic model-based [Operational Forecast Systems. This forecast guidance provides oceanographic information that helps mariners safely navigate their local waters. This national network of hydrodynamic models provides users with operational nowcast and forecast guidance (out to 48 – 120 hours) on parameters such as water levels, water temperature, salinity, and currents. These forecast systems are implemented in critical ports, harbors, estuaries, Great Lakes and coastal waters of the United States, and form a national backbone of real-time data, tidal predictions, data management and operational modeling. Nowcasts and forecasts are scientific predictions about the present and future state

Get the data

noaa_access.py
# NOAA Open Data on AWS — public S3, no login
import s3fs

fs = s3fs.S3FileSystem(anon=True)
# find this dataset's bucket in the docs link in the sidebar, then:
# files = fs.ls("noaa-<bucket>/...")
# open NetCDF/GRIB with xarray, COGs with rioxarray
NOAA Open Data is on public AWS S3 — no login at all (anonymous access).