Frequently Asked Questions

It is an estimate of horizontal underwater visibility in feet: roughly how far you can see through the water at that beach today. A 15 ft day means a diver can make out shapes about 15 ft away. The color tier behind the number, Poor through Perfect, translates it into a verdict at a glance.

Position and time of day are the usual reasons. Visibility in the Break Zone often reads about a third of what the Post Break zone reads at the same beach, Open Water is usually no clearer than Post Break, and conditions genuinely swing within a single day. The number is a daily estimate for the beach as a whole. San Diego pages also show measured intraday bars, so you can see how the day actually moved.

The forecast runs more than once a day. The morning run for every beach lands around 6 AM Pacific, and wind refreshes land around 10 AM and 1 PM. The Southern California regions also get a re-forecast around 8 AM and again in the late afternoon and evening. When new data changes the picture, the number moves with it.

Today’s update has not run yet for that beach, so the page shows the last known number instead of pretending it has a fresh one. The stamp tells you exactly which day the number is from. Once the next run lands, the stamp goes away.

The forecast is calibrated against real lifeguard and diver observations, and on calibrated stations the average error is about 2 ft. It runs wider where data is thinner. The confidence label on each forecast tells you how sure the model is that day.

High confidence shows a single committed number. Medium shows a tight range of about plus or minus 3 ft. Low shows the full calibrated range. A wider range means the inputs disagree more that day.

Most of it, yes. Today’s forecast on every beach, the measured San Diego charts, the Ichthyopedia, the biome guides, Nautical News, the Coastal Bulletin, and dive reporting are all free. Ocean Oracle Pro adds the 7-day forecast, watchlists with alerts, the Dive Log, and more on top.

No account is required to read today’s forecast or any of the free content. A free account lets you report dives, post sightings, and heart and comment on shared journal entries. Pro sits on top of a free account.

Pro costs $5 a month or $50 a year, which works out to $4.17 a month. It unlocks the 7-day forecast on every beach, watchlists with the morning alert email, the full Dive Log, per-beach species intel, the Oracle section on the Coastal Bulletin, and an ad-free experience. Subscribe from the Ocean Oracle page after signing in; checkout runs through Stripe.

Go to your account page and choose Manage subscription, which opens the Stripe billing portal. Cancel there any time. Your Pro access runs to the end of the period you already paid for.

A member. Everyone who signs up for an account, free or Pro, is a Nautilid. Your username is your public identity on the site; you can change it from your account page once every 30 days.

Pro is not required. Any signed-in account can report a dive at /report-visibility: pick the beach, the date, the time of day, the visibility you got, and where you were in the water. Reporting is one of the most useful things a free account can do.

Reports appear in the San Diego measured-day chart alongside the pier cam readings, so other divers see them the same day. Reports from trusted reporters, hand-picked accounts, also feed the calibration data that trains the algorithm over time.

Good is relative to each beach’s own normal, which is its median over the last 30 days. An alert fires when today reaches the next visibility tier above that normal, beats it by at least 3 ft, and sits at 11 ft or better. A beach already in the top tier needs 10 ft over its own normal. So a 15 ft day at a beach that usually runs 8 ft fires an alert, while a 78 ft day at a spot that is always 78 ft does not.

Yes, unless you choose to share them. Entries are private by default. A shared entry appears on the public community feed at /journal/feed, where any signed-in account can heart and comment.

A notice board of coastal events on the front page and at /bulletin. It carries hazard and advisory pins from official sources (surf, swell, king tides, water quality, red tide, storm runoff, season dates, grunion runs, and more), good-news pins when a region is running unusually clear, and community pins raised when 2 independent Nautilid sighting reports describe the same bioluminescence, red tide, or jellyfish event on the same day. Pro members also see the Oracle section on top, with the best visibility on the board today.

Coverage grows region by region, and some beaches simply have not been built yet. Suggest yours through the feature form at /reports; that is exactly what it is for.

Southern and Central California, Oregon, and Washington today. Browse from the locations pages, where each state breaks out into regions with maps and beach cards showing live visibility.

No forecast deserves that trust, and this one is no exception. It is an estimate of a changing ocean, never a guarantee, and conditions change fast. Dive at your own risk, and always judge the water with your own eyes before you commit.