Are conditions good, or bad? These are the websites I use when I'm planning a dive trip.

Coming soon: How to read each site and compare the sites for each area. Always check the dates on the sites; broken sites may have old data!

Let me know if you have a favorite site that's not listed here!

Conditions

Entire Area

• Chuck Tribolet's Monterey Bay Sea Conditions (his discussion of how to read them is also useful)
• Coastal Data Information Program
• Facebook - Monterey County Dive Reports
• Monterey Health Department (water quality and beach advisories)
• NOAA Near-Shore Wave Prediction System charts (wave height, wind speed, swell, current)
• Solspot (5-day surf forecast)
• Surfer.com (wave forecast)
• TempBreak (look at Latest Chloro 3 Day Composite for algae levels)
• Tideschart (tides and weather)
• Weather Underground (10-day forecast)
• WillyWeather (tide times and heights)

Monterey Bay

(Monterey State Beach, San Carlos Beach, McAbee Beach, Lovers Point, Coral Street)

• NOAA buoy 46240 (off Lovers Point) has swell size and direction
• NOAA buoy 46098 (middle of Monterey Bay) and NOAA station MEYC1 (on municipal wharf) have water temp and wind
• NOAA Near-Shore Wave Prediction System (times are UTC*) (alternate site, Hanson plot from 46236)
• NOAA WaveWatch bulletin (text format, times are UTC*)
• NOAA Weather Forecast (check for small craft advisory)
• SOFAR spotter buoy off McAbee Beach
• SwellInfo (kinda flaky/unreliable; may be missing data)
• WillyWeather (swell forecasts for San Carlos Beach and south, Lovers Point and north)
• Windy (swells; the waves and winds tabs are also useful)

*NOAA predictions use UTC; subtract 8 hours (or 7 hours if daylight saving time) to get local time. This has the effect of shifting the data left (or the time axis right). For example, if NWPS shows a peak swell in Monterey bay at 11 pm Saturday, it's actually at 3 pm or 4 pm Saturday. That makes sense, because wind waves are highest in the afternoon. You can also look at the historical wave data from the corresponding buoy, which has both GMT/UTC and local time.

Carmel Area

(Stillwater Cove Monastery Beach, Point Lobos)

• Magic Seaweed surf report for Carmel Beach (happy surfers = sad divers)
• NOAA buoy 46239 (off Big Sur)
• NOAA Near-Shore Wave Prediction System (times are UTC*) (alternate site, Hanson plot)
• NOAA WaveWatch bulletin (text format, times are UTC*)
• NOAA Weather Forecast (check for small craft advisory)
• SOFAR spotter buoy off Point Joe
• SwellInfo (kinda flaky/unreliable; may be missing data)
• WillyWeather (swell forecast)
• Windy (swells)

Webcams

• Adventures By The Sea (Monterey State Beach, Harbor, and San Carlos Beach)
  • If the boat masts are rocking wildly in the harbor, it means there will be surge (even if it's calm at the surface).
  • If there's sea foam at the point on the breakwater side, vis is likely to be less than 3'.
    

    

  • If you can see whitecaps in the distance, there will be surge and lower vis in the shallows along the wall.
• A Taste of Monterey (Cannery Row)
• Carmel ClamCam (Carmel)
• Fish Hopper (McAbee Beach)
• Monterey Bay Aquarium (Cannery Row)
• Pebble Beach (Stillwater Cove)
• Portola Hotel Webcam (Monterey Harbor)
• Tickle Pink Inn (Carmel)