Abstract:
The Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS) is a program of the National Ocean Service (NOS) that supports safe and cost-efficient navigation by providing ship masters and pilots with accurate real-time information required to avoid groundings and collisions.
PORTS is in response to mariner's observations that NOAA's published water level and current predictions often do not reflect
... actual conditions because the predictions do not include such important forcing functions as winds and river flow.
The Houston/Galveston PORTS data include water level (predicted and observed), surface wind (speed and direction), wind gust, air temperature, water temperature, salinity, conductivity, and water current vectors for 5 measurment stations located throughout the bay. Both ASCII files and GIF images are available from the PORTS website. The data are updated every 6 minutes.
In addition to web access, telephone voice access to the accurate
real-time water level information is available. For access to the
voice data response system:
(713) 673-1860
(713) 673-5371
(409) 766-1031
[This information was obtained from the NOAA/NOS Center for
Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) PORTS
webpages.] 
