Live wave height, wind and water temp — plus an 8-day forecast scored 0–100 for every sport.
Photo: Paul Gillett / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Today at Southwick Beach: Excellent for kite surfing — 80/100 for beginner level. Wind 7 kn NE · Waves 0.5 m, 6 s · Tide -1.6 to 0.6 m. Best window around 11:00 UTC. Today's conditions at Southwick Beach: 0.4m waves with light cross-shore wind. Kite Foiling looks Epic! in the midday, with E-Foiling also worth considering. Water temperature is 17°C / 62°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.
Southwick Beach faces S, and that aspect decides whether the day's wind arrives clean off the water or broken up by the land — which matters more for kite surfing than the forecast speed alone.
Today's wind is cross-shore at 7 kn. Straight cross-shore is the classic kite surfing direction: it lets you hold a line along the beach rather than fighting to get back to it.
Over the published window Southwick Beach clears 60/100 for kite surfing 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, 0 of 10 daylight hours clear that line at Intermediate.
Among the 31 scored spots within reach today, Southwick Beach ranks 20th for kite surfing. 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 south-facing shingle beach on the Channel beside a harbour, with sand exposed at low tide and bedrock exposed further east. Occasional mid-tide waves are surfable, but the sheltered setting better suits windsurfing, kitesurfing and flatwater paddlesports. A seasonal swim zone (May-September) bans motor and sail-powered vessels and fishing within it; jet skis launch only from approved sites elsewhere. No lifeguards; tidal range is around 7 metres.
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Get the free Southwick Beach widgetToday's conditions for Southwick Beach are free. Unlock the full 8-day forecast and per-sport alerts that ping you when this location is about to fire. more than 2,500 European locations, scored from the seabed up.
Wind at Southwick Beach today: 7 kn NE (gusting 17 kn). Wind direction relative to the shore affects kite surfing 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 Southwick Beach today: 0.5 m, 6 s period from SE, 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 surfing at Southwick Beach today is around 23:00 UTC, when conditions score 70/100 for intermediate level. Conditions can shift by the hour — the 4Shor app shows the full 24-hour score chart.
For beginners, Southwick Beach scores 88/100 today for surfing — 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.
Southwick 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.
Southwick Beach is a coastal location near Southwick 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 Southwick 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.
