Data & credits

Forecasts

Weather and marine forecasts are supplied by Open-Meteo under CC BY 4.0. Kelp Pie batches and caches that source data, then modifies it into a conservative beach-facing surf-height range and rating. The underlying models currently include Met Office UKV, ECMWF HRES and Météo-France MFWAM; availability can change upstream.

Tides

Tide predictions are calculated locally from TICON-4: Hart-Davis, M. G., Dettmering, D. and Seitz, F. (2025), TICON-4: TIdal CONstants based on GESLA-4 sea-level records, SEANOE, doi:10.17882/109129. TICON-4 is licensed under CC BY 4.0. We select and adjust nearby gauges and reconstruct the tide curve; predicted heights and times are therefore modified data, not official navigation information.

Maps

Map data, including detailed beach and sand geometry, comes from © OpenStreetMap contributors and is available under the Open Database Licence. Detailed vector tiles are packaged with Protomaps as an ODbL Produced Work and served from Kelp Pie’s own object storage. Country outlines are derived from Natural Earth, which places its data in the public domain.

Live buoys

Nearshore readings come from the National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes of England. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Offshore readings come from the NOAA National Data Buoy Center. NOAA-produced data is public-domain US Government information unless marked otherwise; Kelp Pie acknowledges NOAA/NDBC as the source. Some UK light-vessel and platform readings are relayed through NDBC.

Local listings

Cam, surf-school and independent-shaper links are researched from the operators’ public websites. Kelp Pie does not copy or re-host their video streams, and a listing does not imply endorsement. Corrections are welcome at paul@kelp-pie.co.uk.

Operating basis

Kelp Pie currently operates as a non-commercial community project. That is compatible with the Open-Meteo Free API and Vercel Hobby plan checked on 28 September 2026. Before adding advertising, paid promotion, subscriptions, sales or other commercial use, the project must move to a commercial Open-Meteo plan and an appropriate paid Vercel plan, then recheck every upstream term. Affiliate links must never drive which local businesses are listed.

Licences govern the source data; they do not make the resulting forecasts suitable for navigation or safety-critical decisions.