Seven levels, two boards
Lineup rates every spot for each 3-hour forecast block, worst to best:
Every spot gets a longboard rating and a shortboard rating. Your board choice leads the picks on home, and both ratings stay visible on the spot page.
What goes in
- Waves: the CDIP nearshore wave model from Scripps, run for each spot’s stretch of coast.
- Buoys: live CDIP buoy readings. Where a spot has a reference buoy, its reading nudges the next day of the wave forecast up or down, within limits, and the spot says “Buoy anchored.”
- Wind: Open-Meteo’s wind speed, direction and gusts.
- Tide: NOAA tide predictions.
- Sunset: sunset quality from Sunsethue. It describes the sky and never touches a surf rating.
The wave height is checked against the size each spot likes for each board. Swell period, wind direction and speed, gusts and how the tide suits the spot shape the rest.
Nearshore first, offshore as a fallback
The CDIP nearshore forecast is the wave estimate wherever it’s available. If it isn’t, Lineup falls back to Open-Meteo’s offshore model and labels the height “Rough estimate.”
Epic has a higher bar
A high score alone doesn’t earn Epic. The surf has to be near the top of the board’s ideal size for that spot, with a swell period of 14 seconds or longer and clean wind. A block that scores that high without all three is Good.
A rating for a board outside a spot’s usual type (a shortboard at a longboard point, say) is one level lower and never Epic.
When the wind is unknown
If the wind data is missing, Lineup doesn’t guess. It leaves the wind out, rates the swell and tide, drops the rating one level and says “Wind unknown.” It can’t be Epic.
Missing waves are different: with no wave height there’s no rating at all, so the spot says Unavailable. It never says Flat for data it doesn’t have.
What “now” means
“Now” is the 3-hour forecast block you’re in. The clock and the live tide move by the minute. After dark, the home picks look ahead to first light.
Updates and saved forecasts
The forecast refreshes about every 20 minutes. Tap the refresh control to check again.
Offline, Lineup shows the forecast saved on your device and says “Saved forecast” with the time it’s from. Missing or old data stays labelled.