Data sources & attribution
Independent models, coastal measurements and our own surf calculations.
Only sources present in the selected saved forecast are shown as contributing models. Availability varies by beach, variable, forecast hour and provider response.
Weather and marine models
Weather and marine data by Open-Meteo.com, under CC BY 4.0. Inputs may include ECMWF IFS / WAM, DWD ICON Europe / EWAM and UK Met Office weather forecasts. BestSwell combines and modifies supplied data to estimate breaking surf and calculate ratings. Provider licences and source credits ↗.
Met Office AMM15 via Copernicus Marine
Where present: Atlantic – European North West Shelf Ocean Wave Analysis and Forecast, NWSHELF_ANALYSISFORECAST_WAV_004_014, DOI 10.48670/moi-00055. This service uses modified Copernicus Marine Service information (2026). Produced by the UK Met Office; BestSwell derives coastal surf estimates from the model output. Copernicus licence ↗.
Coastal buoy observations
Credit: National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes / Channel Coastal Observatory and contributing regional programmes. CCO API documentation ↗. Station, source, measurement time and distance are shown with each available observation.
Irish buoy observations: Marine Institute, Irish Weather Buoy Network, with the network’s contributing organisations. Missing or stale observations are labelled; they are not replaced with invented measurements.
Additional sources
If the forecasting engine uses a fallback provider, the saved forecast source is displayed. Cefas WaveNet access has been confirmed, but access alone does not mean WaveNet observations contribute to the selected forecast. Additional integrations need their own source credits before publication.
Upstream data retain their respective licences. The quality scores and beach-level estimates are derived outputs; this site does not grant a blanket licence to redistribute all upstream datasets.
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