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Swellread

Santa Rita, Guam · Pacific/Guam

Talofofo Bay

A shallow fringing reef that only stands up on a mid tide. This is the one where getting the tide wrong means getting skinned.

21:00 local · 2026-10-05

47% — the read for this hour

Marginal47%

Swell

1.56 m

Period

6 s

Swell from

226°

Wind

7.3 m/s

Wind from

224°

Air

27°C

Marginal47%

Marginal — one good hour at most. At Talofofo Bay on this hour the read is 47%. What earns it: peel speed at 12.3 km/h. What costs it: direction match at 94° off the 132° peel.

6 hours worth driving for today: 00:00, 01:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00.

Tide window for a reef: 0.6–1.4 m of water over the take-off; below 0.40 m it wants the reef just covered matters and the reef is exposed.

Talofofo Bay · 24 hours, local timelive data
00:0003:0006:0009:0012:0015:0018:0021:00
score tide (dashed, MLLW) swell height now

Dashed line is the tide above MLLW, solid line is the swell height. Column height is the engine score for that hour. Faded columns are gated. The hour you select is in the URL, so this page is shareable as-is.

Tide station

Station
Pago Bay, Guam
Datum
MLLW
Range
0.59 m
Mean
0.28 m

Signature interaction

Drag the tide and watch the reef change its mind

The cross-section is drawn from the break's own reef slope. Every change re-runs the shared engine on the server and returns a fresh seal — this control cannot work without the API.

Seabed cross-section · Talofofo BayFringing reef — the swell stands up on a shallow shelf
take-off0m3m6m9m12m15moffshoreinshore · tanβ 0.08
0.35 m

The dashed arrow is the peel, at c = √(g·depth). More water over the take-off means a faster peel, which is why the same swell behaves differently at low and mid tide.

Re-solved by swellread-engine/2026.10.1

Marginal 47%seal 8365dc01783b…
Water over take-off
exposed
Break height
0.78 m
Peel speed
12.3 km/h
Wave power
9.1 kW/m

Marginal — one good hour at most. At Talofofo Bay on this hour the read is 47%. What earns it: peel speed at 12.3 km/h. What costs it: direction match at 94° off the 132° peel.

Every factor, re-weighted for this tide

  • Swell power9.1 kW/m · 9.1%
  • Peel speed12.3 km/h · 20.0%
  • Wind quality7.3 m/s straight onshore · 0.0%
  • Tide window1.20 m over the take-off · 18.0%
  • Direction match94° off the 132° peel · 0.0%
  • Period cleanliness6.0 s · 0.0%

Show your working

Every factor, its weight, and the arithmetic behind it

Weights are renormalised over the factors that have real data behind them. A factor with no data is dropped and said so, never quietly scored at zero.

  • Swell power9.1 kW/m · 9.1%

    weight 0.220

  • Peel speed12.3 km/h · 20.0%

    weight 0.200

  • Wind quality7.3 m/s straight onshore · 0.0%

    weight 0.200

  • Tide window1.20 m over the take-off · 18.0%

    weight 0.180

  • Direction match94° off the 132° peel · 0.0%

    weight 0.120

  • Period cleanliness6.0 s · 0.0%

    weight 0.080

engine seal 8365dc01783ba55bed83077876c5f99b12eba45920a16f84f7224efca2d51aaa5779817779933bdf4fde0527eeb75328

  • Swell power

    P = 1/16 · rho · g · Hs² · Tp = 0.628 · 1.56² · 6 = 9.1 kW/m, against a 22 kW/m "serious day" reference.

  • Peel speed

    c = sqrt(g · depth) = sqrt(9.81 · 1.20 m) = 12.3 km/h over a 1.20 m take-off, with 0.78 m standing up. Full marks 8.5–19 km/h: slower is mush, faster than ~25 km/h is unridable.

  • Wind quality

    Wind is straight onshore at 7.3 m/s. Alignment = 1 − (1 + cos 2°)/2 = 0.00; speed envelope at 7.3 m/s = 1.00. Product 0.00.

  • Tide window

    reef wants the reef just covered. Ideal band 0.6–1.4 m of water over the take-off; below 0.40 m the reef is exposed.

  • Direction match

    Swell from 226°, this break peels cleanly from 132°. 94° of error: inside 12° is full marks, past 75° the swell wraps the headland and does not arrive.

  • Period cleanliness

    Tp = 6.0 s. Energy organises between 6 s and 9.5 s; beyond 14 s the swell stands up steeper than a shallow reef can hold, so the score is eased off by up to 35%.

Provenance

Every number above came from one of these

Snapshot generated 2026-10-04T21:10:50.894Z. Break orientation, reef slope and take-off depth come from this project's catalogue and are labelled as estimates, not survey data.

Talofofo Bay, Santa Rita · Swellread