Ghost Fingers · California surf forecast

Read the break.

Six-tier surf verdicts for every California spot, calibrated to the swell window, the period, the tide, and the wind. Built in Carpinteria. iOS, summer 2026.

Launching summer 2026.

One email at launch.


How it reads

Five facts.

01

Six tiers, not five stars.

A three-star morning at one break is a different ocean than three stars at another. The verdict is keyed to the spot — swell, period, direction, tide, and wind, against the break's orientation. Six tiers, calibrated per break: Flat, Marginal, Worth a look, Fun, Cooking, ITS ON!

02

Public buoys. Public wave models. Public tide.

NOAA NDBC buoys. CDIP MOP nearshore wave model from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. NOAA tide predictions. The GFS Wave grid from NCEP. Federally funded. Freely published.

03

Built in Carpinteria by surfers. Not kooks.

The verdict for each break is calibrated by someone who surfs it. If it reads wrong, it gets retuned.

04

Honest when it sucks. Loud when it cooks.

Flat is flat. Blown out is blown out. When the chain fills — long-period swell on the window, wind offshore, tide right — the verdict says so. One word, not a paragraph.

05

Your data is yours. No crowd to sell.

No login. No tracking pixels. Favorites, custom spots, and session logs live on your device. The verdict is calibrated to public buoys and per-spot tuning, not to aggregated user behavior. There is no crowd-sourced anything.


The catalog

Six California breaks.

SF
Ocean Beach
Famous spot
West Side Santa Cruz
Steamer Lane
Famous spot
Carpinteria
Rincon
Famous spot
Malibu
Malibu — 1st Point
Famous + beginner-friendly
South OC
Lowers
Famous spot
Ventura
C Street
Famous spot

See all 53 California spots, north to south →


Sources

Four public sources.

Offshore swell
NOAA NDBC buoys
Harvest 46218, San Nicolas 46086, Pt. Conception 46011, and the chain west of every California window.
Nearshore model
CDIP MOP
Scripps Institution of Oceanography's spectral wave model, propagated from buoy to break.
Tide
NOAA CO-OPS
Harmonic tide predictions for the closest gauge to each break.
Wind
NOAA NCEP GFS Wave
10-meter wind grid, sectored against each spot's offshore window.

Every source above is public, federally funded, and freely published.