Planning a beach day usually means juggling five tabs: a weather app, a tide chart, a parking map, a restaurant search, and whatever you can find about the sunset. the beach today puts all of it on one page, for one beach, refreshed for today — so you can check it in ten seconds before you go.
One page per beach
Every beach gets its own clean URL — for example /clearwater or /santamonica — and the same set of tools underneath it. Open a beach and you land on a quick snapshot: today's water temperature, the surf, the UV index, and tonight's sunset time. From there, each tool is one tap away.
Conditions, live
The conditions page is the heart of it: a 10-day outlook, an hour-by-hour strip, the rain window for the day, tide times from the nearest NOAA station, wind and UV, and a rip-current read from the National Weather Service. On Florida and Atlantic beaches it also shows red tide and sargassum seaweed status. The numbers come straight from NOAA and Open-Meteo and update through the day — no guesswork, no stale screenshots.
Parking without the circling
The parking page maps the real lots and garages around each beach, with addresses and rates, plus a crowd-based estimate of how full they're likely to be at the hour you're going. Scrub the time slider to see the easy windows before you leave the house.
The sunset, timed to the minute
Sunset is calculated fresh each day for the beach's exact coordinates — so the time you see is the time the sun actually dips there, with a live countdown and whatever evening scene the beach is known for, from a pier festival to a boardwalk wheel.
Where to eat, and what to order
The dining page pulls live ratings and hours from Google Places and points you at the local dish worth ordering — the grouper sandwich, the fish taco, the stone crab — instead of the nearest chain.
Boats and events
The boats page lists the cruises, sunset sails and tours leaving the local marina with departure times and prices. The events page pulls the current week's music, markets and festivals so nothing sneaks up on you.
160+ beaches, and growing
the beach today now covers more than 160 US beaches, grouped by region so you can browse by where you're headed. Find your beach on the home page or the all-beaches index — and if your favorite isn't there yet, it's probably coming.