Glossary
PORTS installations
PORTS installations is NOAA's real-time oceanographic observing installs sited at major U.S. ports; the CO-OPS Metadata API enumerates 43 of them, concentrating tide, water-level, current and meteorological sensors where ships berth. In Datadory's catalog of 1,744 datasets, NOAA CO-OPS coverage.geographic and NOAA CO-OPS coverage note: counts queried from the Metadata API during research are working examples.
What is PORTS installations?
PORTS installations are NOAA's real-time oceanographic observing installs sited at major U.S. ports; the CO-OPS Metadata API enumerates 43 of them, concentrating tide, water-level, current and meteorological sensors where ships berth.
In this catalog it appears concretely: - NOAA CO-OPS coverage.geographic — "43 PORTS installations at major U.S. ports". - NOAA CO-OPS coverage note: counts queried from the Metadata API during research.
Why does PORTS installations matter when choosing a dataset?
Conventions decide whether two sources can be joined at all. Buy one side of an analysis that ignores this convention and every reconciliation step — calendar alignment, unit conversion, entity matching — lands on your team instead of the vendor's.
The failure mode is concrete: the label appears in a listing, the delivered files tell a different story, and the gap surfaces mid-project when fixing it is most expensive.
You rarely have to take a vendor's word for it. 82.4% of the 1,744 datasets Datadory catalogs are free to access, and NOAA CO-OPS coverage.geographic lets you inspect the real artifact before any budget is committed.
How do you evaluate PORTS installations in a data source?
Treat every claim of this attribute as testable:
- Open NOAA CO-OPS coverage.geographic and confirm its record — "43 PORTS installations at major U.S. ports" — against the files you actually receive.
- Open NOAA CO-OPS coverage note: counts queried from the Metadata API during research and compare its listing against the delivered artifact before paying for a commercial equivalent.
- Pin down update cadence in writing. Across this catalog, 22.6% of 1,744 datasets refresh daily and 64 still arrive only through a manual request form, so ask exactly how fresh each release is.
- Check whether definitions are verified at all. Field definitions are verified for 1495 of 1,744 datasets (85.7%), and any source you license should meet that bar.
- Price the delivery route before the license. In this catalog bulk download is the most common access method (725 datasets) ahead of official APIs (574), and 379 sources still require scraping — a maintenance cost that lands on you, not the vendor.
See the term applied to real records: marine-ports-services data, marine-transportation data.
Related terms
Adjacent concepts worth reading next: - currents - Tide predictions - Water levels
Frequently asked questions
What is an example of PORTS installations?
NOAA CO-OPS coverage.geographic is the clearest example in this catalog. Its record states: "43 PORTS installations at major U.S. ports". Across all 1,744 datasets Datadory averages a quality score of 7.81 out of 10, so a named example can be weighed rather than trusted blindly.
Is data described as "PORTS installations" free to use?
Treat access and permission separately. 82.4% of the 1,744 datasets in this catalog are free to access, but 235 are freemium and 61 are paid outright, so confirm both the price and the license on the exact distribution before building on it.
How do I verify a source really provides PORTS installations?
Open NOAA CO-OPS coverage.geographic next to NOAA CO-OPS coverage note: counts queried from the Metadata API during research and compare the promise with the download. Field definitions are verified for 1495 of 1,744 datasets (85.7%), which makes that check fast inside the catalog and manual outside it.
Datasets containing this field
Datasets containing PORTS installations
6 datasets carry ports installations in the catalog. Open one, count the fields, judge for yourself.
AISHub Open AIS Data Sharing Network
American Association of Port Authorities – U.S. Port Directory & Statistics
CBP Ports of Entry – Official U.S. Port Directory
Port Name · Port Code · Location Address …+4 more
NOAA CO-OPS API – Tides, Currents & Water Levels
Every listing shows the field dictionary, sample rows, and coverage before you commit. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
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