Safety and data disclaimer
This site reports conditions. It does not certify that they are safe, and it is no substitute for a lifeguard, a National Weather Service warning, or your own judgment at the water's edge.
· Written in plain English on purpose
In an emergency, call 911. At sea, hail the US Coast Guard on VHF Channel 16. Do not spend time checking a website.
What BreakAtlas is
BreakAtlas takes public measurements and forecasts from NOAA and the National Weather Service and arranges them one page per spot. Every number carries the station it came from and the time it was taken. That is the whole product: faster access to agency data, with the provenance kept attached.
It is not a monitoring service. Nobody watches these pages in real time, nobody is on call, and no page is checked before you read it. The reports are rebuilt on a schedule and stand unattended in between.
Conditions change faster than this site
A report describes the moment its readings were taken. Surf, wind, current and water level can change substantially within that gap. A buoy sits offshore in deep water and cannot see what a sandbar, a jetty or a river mouth is doing to the wave at the beach. Two spots a mile apart can differ completely on the same swell.
When the water looks different from the numbers, the water is right. That sentence is in the footer of every page on this site, and it is meant literally.
Which source governs
For anything that carries a warning, the issuing authority governs and this site does not. Where BreakAtlas repeats surf zone, rip current or beach hazard wording, it stays close to the National Weather Service text on purpose — but the authoritative version is always the agency's own, and it may be newer than ours.
| For | Follow |
|---|---|
| Warnings, watches, advisories, beach hazards | National Weather Service and your local forecast office |
| Whether a beach is open and swimmable today | The lifeguards and the flag system on that beach |
| Water quality, closures, bacteria, red tide | Your state or county health department |
| Navigation and offshore conditions | US Coast Guard and NOAA marine forecasts |
| Local rules, access, seasonal restrictions | The agency or landowner that manages the beach |
Rip currents
Rip currents are the leading surf hazard on US beaches and are responsible for the majority of surf-zone rescues and fatalities. They can form in calm-looking water and are frequently invisible from the shore. A low forecast risk means lower probability, not absence.
No rip current information on this site — or anywhere — should be read as clearance to enter the water. Swim at a beach with lifeguards, and swim near them. If you are caught in a current, do not swim against it.
What the individual readings can and cannot say
Buoy measurements
Wave height, dominant period, direction and water temperature from NDBC buoys are real measurements taken at that buoy's position — often many miles offshore. Significant wave height is a statistical value: individual waves are routinely larger, and the largest in a set can be considerably larger. Instruments drift, foul and fail; a value can be wrong before anyone notices.
Gaps
When a station reports nothing, this site shows a gap rather than a plausible number. A missing value means the sensor was silent at that hour — it does not mean flat, and it does not mean safe.
Model output
Forecasts come from WaveWatch III and are labelled as model output wherever they appear. A model is a computation, not an observation. When a buoy is offline, a spot page may show model values alone and says model only in that case. Accuracy falls off with forecast range, and models handle nearshore transformation poorly.
Tides
CO-OPS tide values are predictions based on harmonic analysis. Actual water level regularly differs because of wind, atmospheric pressure, river discharge and storm surge — during a storm, by a lot.
Water temperature
Water temperature is measured at a buoy or station, not where you enter the water. Upwelling, river outflow, tidal exchange and depth can move the real number several degrees within a short distance. Any wetsuit guidance derived from it is a starting point for a decision you make yourself, and cold-water immersion carries risks — including cold shock and hypothermia — that no chart accounts for.
Cameras
Cams shown or linked here are operated by third parties. Images can be delayed, frozen, misaimed or hours old, and a still frame shows a moment rather than a set. Treat a cam as a hint about conditions, never as proof of them.
Not professional advice
Nothing on this site is medical, legal, maritime, navigational or professional safety advice. Surfing, swimming, bodyboarding, diving and any other water activity carry an inherent risk of serious injury and death. Assess your own ability honestly, account for the conditions in front of you, and get local instruction if you are new to a spot.
Errors and corrections
We verify reports against the raw sources and still expect to be wrong sometimes: an upstream feed can be faulty, a spot can be matched to the wrong station, an outage can go unnoticed. Corrections are welcome and get acted on — info@breakatlas.com or the contact page. A wrong station mapping is worth reporting even if it only affects one beach; it affects everyone reading that beach.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Honeygoat GmbH accepts no liability for any loss, injury or damage arising from reliance on information published here, whether the information was accurate, inaccurate, delayed, incomplete or absent. The full clause, including the mandatory-law carve-outs that always apply, is in section 7 of the Terms of Use, of which this page forms part.
The decision to enter the water is yours, and the consequences are yours. That is not a legal formula added at the end. It is the honest description of what a website can and cannot do for you at a beach.