Where today's numbers come from
This page carries a live readings panel that loads in your browser. It reads the current National Weather Service and NOAA products for this stretch of coast and prints each value beside the time the feed was fetched, so you can see how old a number is before you use it. When a provider has not published a usable value, it says so instead of filling the gap. If the panel does not load, the official sources listed at the end of this page carry the same information.
Air temperature, wind and sky come from the National Weather Service forecast for the island grid point. They describe the whole island, not the spot where you park.
Surf height, rip-current risk and the UV index come from the NWS Brownsville surf-zone forecast, the product behind NWS Brownsville Beachcast. It is issued for the Gulf beaches of Cameron and Willacy counties; a single reading at one jetty can differ from it.
Water temperature and tide times come from NOAA station 8779748 at the South Padre Island Coast Guard Station, on the bay side of the island. Tide times are predictions, and the height of water at a beach access is not the same measurement as the station's.
Sunrise and sunset are calculated times for the island's coordinates. They tell you how much daylight is left, nothing about heat, cloud or whether the water is suitable.
The next several days
The outlook in that panel lists the National Weather Service's own named day and night periods, with the temperature, wind, sky and chance of precipitation it published for each one. The Weather Service publishes about a week of these periods for this point, and it is the land forecast for the island. Numbers further out are planned around, not counted on: the beach decision still belongs to the morning of the day itself.
There is no seven-day surf, rip-current or water-quality forecast from any of these providers, so this page does not invent one. For those, come back on the day.
Before you get in the water
The flag flying at the beach and any instruction from lifeguards or beach patrol outrank everything printed here. Flags are set locally, they change during the day, and they reflect what staff can see in the water right now. This page cannot show you the flag.
A low rip-current risk in a forecast is not a promise. Rip currents form near jetties, groins, piers and the passes at either end of the island even on calm days, and the surface can look flat over one. Read South Padre Island beach flags once before your first swim of the trip, and how to read the surf forecast if you want to understand the numbers rather than only the summary.
Thunderstorms are a separate decision again. Lightning is a reason to leave the sand, not only the water, and a storm can reach the island faster than a beach day packs up.
Water quality, seaweed and stinging animals
Water-quality results are laboratory samples taken at named monitoring stations on particular days, published by the Texas General Land Office through Texas Beach Watch. There is no live sensor, so match the station to the beach you plan to use and read the sample date. South Padre Island water quality explains how to read the map without turning one sample into an island-wide conclusion.
Seaweed and stinging animals arrive with wind and current and can differ from one beach access to the next on the same morning. Sargassum and seaweed and jellyfish and Portuguese man o' war cover what changes and what to do.
If you live here
The same feeds work for a Tuesday-morning decision as for a vacation. Tide times matter for wade fishing and for the flats; water temperature at the station is the bay-side number, not the Gulf; and the surf-zone product is the one that carries the rip-current risk the beach flags respond to. For a boat trip, the NWS Brownsville marine forecast covers the water beyond the beach, which the beach products do not.
Booms and shaking felt on the island are usually SpaceX testing or launching Starship at Starbase, a few miles south—see Starbase launches and static fires if that has ever caught you off guard.
Where these numbers come from
- NWS Brownsville Beachcast — surf height, rip-current risk and UV index for the Gulf beaches.
- NWS island forecast — air temperature, wind, sky and the seven-day outlook.
- NOAA tide predictions, station 8779748 — predicted high and low tide times.
- NOAA station 8779748 — observed water temperature.
- Texas Beach Watch — beach water-quality sampling.
- NWS Brownsville marine forecast — conditions offshore and in the bay.
If one of these reads differently than what you found on the island, send a correction and say which source and time you used.