About Beach Watch

Track changes in beach flags and conditions reported by official sources, with optional alerts when something updates. For informational reference only — not a substitute for the flag flying at the lifeguard tower.

What it does

Beach Watch consolidates beach flag and water condition data from city lifeguard departments, county ocean rescue agencies, the National Weather Service, regional tourism authorities, and the E.U. Copernicus marine and atmosphere services into one place. Instead of bookmarking multiple sites and refreshing each one before heading to the beach, you check Beach Watch and see everything at a glance.

Not every source publishes lifeguard flags. Where a beach flies no flag, we never invent one — we show the underlying measurements instead, clearly marked as conditions rather than flags. See the Beach Conditions Guide.

Current beaches we monitor

More beaches are coming. If there's a beach you'd like added, let us know.

Deerfield Beach — City of Deerfield Beach (daily conditions dashboard)
Delray Beach — City of Delray Beach
Fort Lauderdale Beach — City of Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue
Hollywood Beach — City of Hollywood Fire Rescue (via the city-endorsed safebeachday.com page)
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea — NWS Surf Forecast (Coastal Broward zone)
Miami Beach — Miami Beach Ocean Rescue + NWS supplement
Naples Beach — Visit Naples beach score (Gulf Coast)
Palm Beach County (North & South) — county ocean rescue
Pompano Beach — City of Pompano Beach Ocean Rescue

Italy — Special Edition

Pescara Beach — E.U. Copernicus (Marine Service + Atmosphere Monitoring Service)
Silvi Beach — E.U. Copernicus (Marine Service + Atmosphere Monitoring Service)

These two publish no lifeguard flags, so instead of inventing one we show individual measurements — waves, wind, water temperature and UV — as coloured circles. They are not flags; the Beach Conditions Guide explains every range. Because there is no flag or rip-current level to change, these beaches don't trigger change alerts — but they do appear in scheduled daily updates.

How it works

A background process checks each beach's official source on its own schedule — most hourly (more often during peak daytime hours), while the Copernicus-sourced beaches refresh their marine readings every couple of hours and their weather readings every few hours. When a flag color or rip current risk changes, anyone subscribed to that beach gets an email or push notification. You can also schedule daily “morning briefing” alerts at fixed times.

Some sources publish data in friendly tables, some offer a clean data feed, and others bury it in dynamic dashboards. Where a feed exists we read it directly, which is faster and exact. For the harder pages we use AI-powered text extraction (Claude Haiku) to read the page the way a human would. The AI never sees user data — it only reads public beach condition pages.

Notification options

Push notifications — install Beach Watch as an app on your phone for instant alerts when conditions change.
Email alerts — full-detail emails sent on any flag change or at your chosen daily times.
SMS — not available at this time.

Why we built this

Beach Watch exists to promote water safety. Every year people get into trouble in water that looked fine from the sand — rip currents are invisible, surf builds through the day, and the one detail that would have changed someone's mind is often buried on a page they never thought to check.

We can't make the ocean safer. What we can do is make it easier to pause and look before you go in, and harder to miss a warning that was published but hard to find.

How we try to stay honest

We aim to be as transparent as we can about where our information comes from and what we do to it:

Every beach names its source, and we link to it wherever one exists.
We show what the source publishes — nothing more. If a beach flies lifeguard flags, we show exactly those flags. If it doesn't publish any, we say so plainly and show the underlying measurements instead. We never invent a flag, a rip-current level, or an overall safety rating.
Our thresholds are published. Where we colour a measurement, the exact ranges behind every colour are listed in the Beach Conditions Guide — no hidden formula.
We show our workings. For beaches sourced from open data, a conditions-source page lists the raw readings and the licence they're published under.
We tell you how fresh it is, including when a reading is older than it should be.

Questions, corrections, ideas

We genuinely welcome them — especially corrections. If a reading looks wrong, a beach is missing, or something here is unclear or misleading, please let us know.

Email us at beachwatch-info@mail.veroapps.ai. Suggestions for beaches to add are welcome too.

Important disclaimer

Beach Watch is a convenience tool, not an official safety source. Conditions change quickly. Always look at the physical flag posted at the lifeguard tower, talk to a lifeguard, and consult the official source for the beach you're visiting before entering the water.

Using Beach Watch safely

Think of Beach Watch as one layer in a complete beach-safety routine, not a replacement for any of the others. Before you or anyone in your group enters the water:

Check the flag at the lifeguard tower. The physical flag flying at the tower is the current, authoritative call for that beach — it always overrides what you see in the app.
Talk to a lifeguard if you’re unsure about conditions, rip currents, or your own swimming ability — they give you beach-specific advice a website can’t.
Watch children continuously. Drowning is fast and silent. Stay within arm’s reach of young children in the water, even in shallow surf.
Never swim alone, at night, or after drinking. A buddy and daylight are the two most reliable safety tools you have.
Know how to escape a rip current. Swim parallel to shore until you’re out of the current, then angle back in — don’t fight it head-on.

For a plain-English breakdown of Florida flag colors, rip-current survival, and what each warning actually means, see our Beach Safety Guide.

Actively maintained

Beach Watch is developed and maintained by Vero Apps AI Inc. We regularly update our data sources, add new beaches based on user requests, and fix issues as they’re reported. If a flag looks wrong, a beach is missing, or the app is behaving strangely, please let us know — real reports from real users are how the app improves.

Who runs Beach Watch

Beach Watch is operated by Vero Apps AI Inc., a corporation registered in Ontario, Canada. Vero Apps AI Inc. is responsible for the operation of the service and is the contracting party named in our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Contact

Questions, beach requests, or bug reports: beachwatch-info@mail.veroapps.ai