Live wave height, wind and water temp — plus an 8-day forecast scored 0–100 for every sport.
Photo: Chris Whippet / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Today at Dover Beach: Okay for surfing — 61/100 for beginner level. Wind 7 kn E · Waves 1.1 m, 6 s · Tide -1.9 to 0.8 m. Best window around 17:00 UTC. Today's conditions at Dover Beach: 0.6m waves with light onshore wind. Kite Foiling looks Excellent in the afternoon, 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.
Dover Beach faces SE, away from the prevailing Atlantic swell. For surfing that means it needs a specific direction to work rather than picking up the everyday groundswell, so it is a spot to check rather than assume.
Today's wind is cross-onshore at 7 kn. Leaning onshore, so expect some texture on the face for surfing — rideable, but short of clean.
Over the published window Dover Beach clears 60/100 for 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, Dover Beach ranks 21st for 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 sheltered shingle beach inside Dover's working harbour walls, backed by the town seafront with views of the White Cliffs and Dover Castle. Harbour walls block open-sea swell, so conditions favour flat-water swimming, kayaking, windsurfing and paddleboarding over surfing; the north-eastern section is used for Channel-swim training. A marked swimming zone operates April-October with an 8-knot speed limit for craft.
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Get the free Dover Beach widgetToday's conditions for Dover 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 Dover Beach today: 7 kn E (gusting 19 kn). Wind direction relative to the shore affects 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 Dover Beach today: 1.1 m, 6 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 surfing at Dover Beach today is around 04:00 UTC, when conditions score 47/100 for intermediate level. Conditions can shift by the hour — the 4Shor app shows the full 24-hour score chart.
For beginners, Dover Beach scores 61/100 today for surfing — Okay. 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.
Dover 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.
Dover Beach is a coastal location near Dover 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 Dover 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.
