noaa-marine-mcp-server

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  <h1>@cyanheads/noaa-marine-mcp-server</h1>
  <p><b>Find NOAA tide stations and NDBC buoys, fetch tide predictions, water levels, tidal currents, and live buoy conditions via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.</b>
  <div>7 Tools • 1 Resource</div>
  </p>
</div>

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**Public Hosted Server:** [https://noaa-marine.caseyjhand.com/mcp](https://noaa-marine.caseyjhand.com/mcp)

</div>

---

## Tools

Seven tools covering the full US marine operational workflow — station discovery, tide predictions, observed water levels, tidal current predictions and profiles, and live offshore buoy conditions:

| Tool | Description |
|:-----|:------------|
| `noaa_marine_find_stations` | Find CO-OPS tide/water-level/current stations and NDBC buoys near a location or by name/state. Required first step to resolve place names or coordinates to station IDs. |
| `noaa_marine_get_tide_predictions` | High/low tide predictions for a CO-OPS tide station over a date range. Supports 6-minute interval output and multiple datums (defaults to MLLW — US nautical chart standard). |
| `noaa_marine_get_water_level` | Observed water level (real-time or historical) for a CO-OPS station, paired with predictions to compute storm surge or anomalous drawdown. |
| `noaa_marine_get_currents` | Tidal current predictions for a CO-OPS current station: max flood/ebb speeds, slack times, and directions. Defaults to MAX_SLACK (practical passage-planning view). |
| `noaa_marine_get_conditions` | Live marine conditions from an NDBC buoy: wave height/period/direction, wind, sea-surface temp, air temp, and barometric pressure. |
| `noaa_marine_get_current_profile` | Observed ocean-current depth profile from an NDBC ADCP buoy: speed and direction at each depth bin. Distinct from `noaa_marine_get_currents`, which is a CO-OPS tidal-current forecast. |
| `noaa_marine_get_ocean_observations` | Sub-surface water-column observations from an NDBC station: water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, turbidity, and pH at each reported depth. The water-column counterpart to `noaa_marine_get_conditions` (surface weather and sea state). |

### `noaa_marine_find_stations`

Unified station discovery across CO-OPS (3,450+ tide/water-level stations, 4,430+ current stations) and NDBC (1,354+ active buoys worldwide).

- Filter by proximity (latitude/longitude + radius), name substring, state/territory, source (CO-OPS vs NDBC), or `types`: data capabilities (tide, current, water_level, met, current_profile) or NDBC platform class (buoy)
- Returns a unified station list with source, coordinates, distance, data capabilities, and — for NDBC — the physical platform class (buoy, fixed, oilrig, dart, tao, usv, other)
- Station lists are cached in-memory (6-hour TTL) — first call after startup may be slightly slower
- Required first step: CO-OPS and NDBC use non-overlapping ID systems; guessing a station ID reliably fails

---

### `noaa_marine_get_tide_predictions`

CO-OPS MLLW tide predictions for planning tidal windows.

- High/low events (default) or 6-minute continuous curve
- Eight datums: MLLW (default, US nautical chart), MHHW, MSL, MTL, MHW, MLW, CD, STND
- Time zone options: local standard/daylight (default), GMT, local standard only
- Units: English (feet, default) or metric (meters)
- Maximum date range: 1 year per request (typed error `date_range_exceeded` for longer ranges)

---

### `noaa_marine_get_water_level`

Observed water level vs. predicted — the storm surge view.

- 6-minute observed water level readings with quality flags
- Paired tide predictions fetched in parallel (failure degrades gracefully — observed levels still returned)
- Optional residual summary: max surge and max drawdown when both series are present
- Maximum date range: 31 days per request for 6-minute data

---

### `noaa_marine_get_currents`

CO-OPS tidal current predictions for passage planning.

- MAX_SLACK interval (default): max flood, max ebb, and slack events only — the actionable view for transiting inlets and channels
- 6-minute interval: full continuous current curve for charting or integration
- Current station IDs use alphanumeric format (e.g., `ACT4176`), distinct from numeric tide station IDs — use `find_stations` with `types: ["current"]` to discover them

---

### `noaa_marine_get_conditions`

Live NDBC buoy observations (most recent ~45 days, updated every 10 minutes).

- Wave height (m), dominant and average period (sec), mean wave direction
- Wind speed and gust (m/s), wind direction
- Sea-surface temperature, air temperature, dew point (°C)
- Barometric pressure (hPa)
- All sensor fields nullable (`null` when buoy sensor did not report — normal for offshore buoys)
- All values in SI units except `TIDE` (feet) and `VIS` (nautical miles), which are rarely populated at offshore buoys

---

### `noaa_marine_get_current_profile`

Observed ocean-current depth profile from an NDBC ADCP buoy — the most recent measurement at each depth bin.

- Depth (m), direction (degrees true, the direction the current flows toward), and speed (cm/s) per bin
- Distinct from `noaa_marine_get_currents`: this is an NDBC *observed* acoustic-Doppler measurement, not a CO-OPS tidal-current *prediction*
- Most NDBC stations serve no ADCP profile — use `find_stations` with `source="ndbc"` and `types: ["current_profile"]` to discover the ones that do
- Direction or speed is `null` for a bin when NDBC did not report that component

### `noaa_marine_get_ocean_observations`

Sub-surface water-column observations from an NDBC station — the most recent reading at each reported depth.

- Water temperature (°C), conductivity (mS/cm), salinity (psu), dissolved oxygen (% saturation and ppm), chlorophyll (µg/l), turbidity (FTU), pH, and redox potential (mV) per depth
- The water-column counterpart to `noaa_marine_get_conditions`: this reports what the water is doing below the surface, that one reports surface weather and sea state
- Sensor coverage is sparse — most stations report only temperature and salinity; any value the station did not report comes back `null`, never a fabricated zero
- Sub-surface sensors are on only a subset of NDBC stations and carry no station-catalog flag, so there is no capability filter — call it on candidate `source="ndbc"` station IDs and expect the `observations_not_found` error on the many stations that serve no ocean file

## Resources and prompts

| Type | Name | Description |
|:-----|:-----|:------------|
| Resource | `noaa-marine://station/{station_id}` | Metadata for a CO-OPS or NDBC station by ID: name, coordinates, source, data capabilities, state, and — for NDBC — physical platform class. |

All resource data is also reachable via tools. Use `noaa_marine_find_stations` to discover station IDs before accessing the resource.

## Features

Built on [`@cyanheads/mcp-ts-core`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@cyanheads/mcp-ts-core):

- Declarative tool and resource definitions — single file per primitive, framework handles registration and validation
- Unified error handling — handlers throw, framework catches, classifies, and formats with typed error contracts
- Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing
- STDIO and Streamable HTTP transports
- MCP 2026 cache hints for static definition lists and station metadata
- Pluggable auth: `none`, `jwt`, `oauth`

NOAA-specific:

- In-memory station cache (6-hour TTL) for CO-OPS and NDBC station lists — discovery is fast after first startup
- CO-OPS and NDBC integrated in a unified station model — `find_stations` fans out across both sources in parallel
- NDBC fixed-width text parser: `MM` (missing sensor data) normalized to `null`, not passed through as strings
- Paired water-level + prediction fetches for storm surge residual computation
- CO-OPS `application=` courtesy parameter sent on every request (configurable via `NOAA_APPLICATION_ID`)

Agent-friendly output:

- Datum echoed on every tide/water-level response — agents can state units a