Live wave height, wind and water temp — plus an 8-day forecast scored 0–100 for every sport.
Photo: Carroll Pierce / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Today at Ballyholme Beach: Epic! for kite foiling — 94/100 for expert level. Wind 6 kn SE · Waves 0.3 m, 4 s · Tide -1.2 to 0.5 m. Best window around 13:00 UTC. Today's conditions at Ballyholme Beach: 0.3m waves with light offshore wind. Kite Foiling looks Epic! in the midday, with E-Foiling also worth considering. Water temperature is 14°C / 57°F.
Forecast updated · ShorSense™
Today plus the next two days are free for everyone — scored in 3-hour windows, just like the app. The full 8-day forecast lives in the 4Shor app.
Ballyholme Beach faces NW, open to the prevailing westerlies, so the wind arrives off the water rather than filtered through the land — the clean, steady flow kite foiling wants, and the reason gusts here are sea breezes rather than land turbulence.
Today's wind is offshore at 6 kn. Offshore is the one to be careful with for kite foiling — a failure blows you away from the beach, so it is a spot for a safety boat or a change of plan rather than a solo session.
Over the published window Ballyholme Beach clears 60/100 for kite foiling at every ability from Beginner to Expert — an unusually broad spot, which normally means a range of conditions rather than one narrow sweet spot. Today, 10 of 10 daylight hours clear that line at Intermediate.
Among the 31 scored spots within reach today, Ballyholme Beach ranks 2nd for kite foiling. The order changes by discipline: the same conditions that put a spot top for one sport can drop it down the list for another.
Satellite-derived bathymetry with 10 m pixels and 10 cm vertical resolution out to ~40 m depth. The shape of the seabed is what determines where and how waves break.
Most apps run a single global model at 9–25 km. We blend regional NWP from national meteorological offices at 1.3–2 km — UK Met Office UKV, Météo-France AROME HD, ItaliaMeteo ICON-2I — with ECMWF IFS for the 8-day horizon. Finer resolution means the sea breeze, cliff funnelling and bay shadowing that changes everything for a session.
A nearshore wave model propagates the spectrum across the bathymetric mesh — modelling refraction, shoaling, dissipation, focusing and breaking as it goes. Most apps stop at swell + wind. We go further.
10 sport models × 4 ability levels weight wave height, period, wind, tide and breaking conditions differently — calibrated against ridden sessions so the scores mean what they say.
A sheltered, family-friendly sandy bay roughly 1.3 km long with rocky shores, submerged rocks and stones at each end, and groynes crossing the beach. It suits flat-water and bump-and-jump kite and windsurfing, sailing, paddleboarding and open-water swimming rather than surfing; strong northerly wind can raise small waves on the west side. Best at low-to-mid tide; kiting at high tide is discouraged. No beach lifeguard; nearby RNLI lifeboat covers the bay.
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Wind at Ballyholme Beach today: 6 kn SE (gusting 20 kn). Wind direction relative to the shore affects kite foiling conditions significantly — offshore winds produce cleaner, glassier surfaces while onshore winds add chop. These are daily averages; the 4Shor app shows hourly detail.
Waves at Ballyholme Beach today: 0.3 m, 4 s period from S, mushy character. 4Shor derives nearshore wave conditions from ECMWF IFS 9-km atmospheric data and the IBI regional ocean model, updated hourly.
The best window for kite foiling at Ballyholme Beach today is around 12:00 UTC, when conditions score 87/100 for intermediate level. Conditions can shift by the hour — the 4Shor app shows the full 24-hour score chart.
For beginners, Ballyholme Beach scores 80/100 today for e-foiling — Excellent. A score of 65–79 is Good for a beginner; 80+ is Excellent (90+ is Epic!); below 45 the session is usually not worth it. 4Shor scores every location across Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert levels.
Ballyholme Beach is scored for Surfing, Windsurfing, Kite Surfing, Kite Foiling, Wing Foiling, E-Foiling, Paddleboarding, Swimming, Kayaking, Canoeing in the 4Shor forecast system. Conditions are rated Beginner through Expert for each sport, updated every hour, so you always know whether the session is worth the drive.
Ballyholme Beach is a coastal location near Bangor in United Kingdom. It is one of more than 2,500 European water-sport locations scored daily by 4Shor.
4Shor's ShorSense™ system combines satellite-derived seafloor mapping, nearshore wave models, wind and tide data to generate a hyper-local forecast. At Ballyholme Beach, conditions are scored hourly on a 0–100 scale for each sport and ability level. A score of 80+ means Excellent (90+ Epic!); 65–79 is Good; below 45 the session is usually not worth the drive.
Questions about 4Shor itself — accuracy, pricing, the free trial — are answered on the FAQ page.
