Live wave height, wind and water temp — plus an 8-day forecast scored 0–100 for every sport.
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Today at Porthleven Beach: Good for surfing — 65/100 for intermediate level. Wind 5 kn E · Waves 1.2 m, 14 s · Tide -1.3 to 0.5 m. Best window around 15:00 UTC. Today's conditions at Porthleven Beach: 0.9m waves with light offshore wind. Kite Foiling looks Excellent in the midday, with E-Foiling also worth considering. Water temperature is 16°C / 61°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.
Porthleven Beach faces SW, straight into the prevailing Atlantic swell window — the reason it has waves at all, and the reason it is rarely flat.
Today's wind is cross-offshore at 5 kn. Leaning offshore, so the face should still stand up clean for surfing — not the glassy hold of a straight offshore, but the right side of neutral.
Over the published window Porthleven 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, 1 of 10 daylight hours clear that line at Intermediate.
Among the 31 scored spots within reach today, Porthleven 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.
An exposed, SSW-facing beach beside a working harbour. West of the mouth, a shallow, barnacle-covered reef breaks fast and hollow, with a right barrel into the harbour channel and longer lefts, best at low-to-mid tide, for advanced surfers. Sand toward Looe Bar offers calmer water at low tide. RNLI lifeguards patrol early July–early Sept, 10am–6pm; unpatrolled otherwise. Rip currents and exposed rocks are hazards. Dogs banned 10am–6pm, 1 July–31 Aug.
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Wind at Porthleven Beach today: 5 kn E (gusting 17 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 Porthleven Beach today: 1.2 m, 14 s period from NE, closing 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 Porthleven Beach today is around 15:00 UTC, when conditions score 65/100 for intermediate level. Conditions can shift by the hour — the 4Shor app shows the full 24-hour score chart.
For beginners, Porthleven Beach scores 82/100 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.
Porthleven 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.
Porthleven Beach is a coastal location near Porthleven 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 Porthleven 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.
