Coastal Ocean Reanalysis (CORA)

NOAA's Coastal Ocean Reanalysis (CORA) couples long-term water level observations with hydrodynamic modeling to create historical information between tide stations to bridge gaps in service and serve the Nation's coastal communities effectively and accurately. CORA water levels are simulated with ADvanced CIRCulation (ADCIRC) for ocean circulation modeling and coupled with a phase-averaging model called Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) to produce surface gravity wave spectra and account for time-averaged wave contributions. Coastal water level observations from NOAA's Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) National Water Level Observation Network (NWLON) are low-pass filtered and assimilated into the model to account for long-term sea level variability and to reduce model errors, and validate results. The domain of this reanalysis spans the Gulf, Atlantic (East), and Caribbean coastlines (or CORA-GEC).

The reanalysis (1979-2022) was performed through the partnership of NOAA National Ocean Service (NOS) and University of North Carolina's (UNC) Institute of Marine Sciences and Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). Validation of CORA-GEC water levels compared to tide gauge observations was conducted in collaboration with the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center (UHSLC). This modeled dataset, also provides hourly water levels for unstructured grid nodes along state shorelines and in 500m structured grids. Secondary derived datasets including daily maximums (daily maxes), monthly statistics, and peak over thresholds are included for the structured 500m grids. Tidal datums, extreme water levels and sub-seasonal to annual high tide flooding predictions and outlooks are also among the derived products to be added. Moreover, the domain of the analysis will be expanded to the Pacific and the dataset to be included when it becomes available.