NOAA CORA: Coastal Water Level and Wave Reanalysis, 1979-2022

44.6 terabytes of modeled data provide hourly coastal water levels and nearshore waves from 1979 to 2022 for the Gulf, Atlantic, and Caribbean coasts. The dataset results from coupling the ADCIRC and SWAN hydrodynamic models, with data assimilation from NOAA's verified hourly water level observations to improve accuracy. It includes primary model outputs on unstructured grids and 500-meter structured grids, plus derived products like daily maximums and flood predictions.

Use Cases

• Validating coastal flood models using assimilated hourly water level observations.
• Analyzing long-term wave climate trends from simulated nearshore wave spectra.
• Generating high-tide flood outlooks based on derived daily maximum water levels.
• Bridging observational gaps between tide stations with modeled historical water levels.

Strengths

• Covers a 44-year time series from 1979 to 2022, providing a long historical baseline.
• Uses data assimilation from verified NOAA observations to reduce model errors.
• Offers multiple spatial representations, including centroid (300-400m) and gridded (500m) resolutions.

Limitations

• Key metadata like specific row/node counts and complete column details are unavailable across sources.
• An upcoming AWS S3 directory restructuring in 2026 may disrupt existing data access paths.
• The Pacific domain data is noted as a future expansion and is not yet included.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), produced in partnership with UNC Institute of Marine Sciences and RENCI.

Collection Method

Hydrodynamic modeling using coupled ADCIRC (circulation) and SWAN (wave) models, with assimilation and validation from NOAA CO-OPS tide gauge observations.

Time Range

1979 to 2022

Freshness

Last updated metadata indicates 2026-03-10, though this may refer to a future restructuring notice.

Geography

Gulf, Atlantic (East Coast), and Caribbean coasts (CORA-GEC domain), approximately Latitude 5.8 to 45.8, Longitude -98.0 to -53.8.