mcnoaa-tides

One question away

NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — runs a network of tide stations along every U.S. coast. About 300 of them, from Eastport, Maine to Pago Pago, American Samoa. They measure water levels every six minutes. Many also track wind speed, air pressure, and water temperature. All of it gets published as free, public data.

The catch? The raw API isn’t exactly conversational. Station IDs, product codes, datum references, time formats — it’s built for machines, not people.

mcnoaa-tides sits in the middle. It’s a server that knows how to talk to NOAA’s API, and it lets your assistant handle the details. You ask “when’s the best time to fish near Seattle?” and behind the scenes, the nearest station gets found, 48 hours of tide predictions get pulled, weather conditions get checked, and you get a window you can actually plan around.

No API keys. No data wrangling. Just ask.

What does that look like?

Plan a fishing trip

“When’s the best time to fish near Newport this weekend?”

Finds nearby stations, pulls tide turning points, checks wind and barometric pressure, and identifies the best incoming-tide window.

See how it works →

Check before you launch

“Is it safe to take the boat out from Seattle today?”

Checks wind, gusts, visibility, water temperature, and pressure trend. Comes back with GO, CAUTION, or NO-GO — and tells you why.

See the safety prompt →

Snorkeling at low tide

“When’s the next good low tide for snorkeling at La Jolla?”

Finds extreme low tides that expose reefs, checks water temperature and wind to confirm the trip is worth the drive.

See how it works →

Tide pooling with kids

“Find the lowest tide this week near Monterey for tide pooling”

Scans a full week of predictions for the deepest lows. Negative values mean the water drops below the usual low-water mark — more pools exposed.

See how it works →

Deploy crab pots

“Should I deploy pots near Anacortes right now?”

Checks tidal phase, runs a deployment briefing against wind and pressure thresholds, and recommends a soak window with a recovery time.

See how it works →

Beachcombing after a storm

“When’s the next low tide at Cannon Beach? I want to look for agates.”

Confirms a recent storm passed through by checking pressure drops, then finds the first post-storm low-tide window.

See how it works →

Ask for a chart and the data renders right in your conversation:

These are real outputs from the visualize_tides and visualize_conditions tools — learn more about charts →

What’s inside

The server ships with 14 tools, 4 guided workflows, and 3 data resources. If your assistant supports MCP (most do), it can use all of them.

14 Tools

Find stations, pull tides, check weather, classify tidal phases, assess deployment conditions, detect anomalies, generate charts — plus a few more for diagnostics and capability testing.

Full tool reference →

4 Prompt Templates

Pre-built workflows that walk through multi-step tasks: fishing trip planning, marine safety checks, crab pot deployment, and catch pattern analysis. Your assistant follows the steps, you get the results.

Prompt reference →

3 MCP Resources

Station catalog, station detail, and nearby station lookup — structured data your assistant can read directly without calling a tool first.

Resource reference →

Visualization

Tide charts and multi-panel conditions dashboards, rendered as PNG (shows inline) or interactive HTML (pan, zoom, hover for values).

How-to: Charts →

Get started

Run the server — no permanent install needed:

uvx mcnoaa-tides

Then register it with your MCP client. Most accept a JSON config:

{
  "mcnoaa-tides": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": ["mcnoaa-tides"]
  }
}

Quickstart — first tide prediction in 2 minutes

Try the hosted server

A public instance runs at https://mcp.mcnoaa-tides.warehack.ing/ — no install needed. Connect from your browser.

Claude.ai

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector — paste the URL and save. No auth needed.

Available on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans.

ChatGPT

Settings → Developer Mode → Connectors → Create — name it “NOAA Tides”, paste the URL, save.

Available on Plus, Team, Enterprise, and Edu plans.

Full setup guide for all clients