State of the Beaches is Beach Day API’s weekly look at recently refreshed records, focused on what current data can support for the week ahead. This edition compares four New South Wales ocean-beach records dated September 28, 2026 and retrieved from the live API on September 28, 2026: Palm Beach, Newcastle Beach, Coogee Beach, and South Cronulla Beach.
A four-record New South Wales comparison
All four records have a latest condition entry dated September 28. The comparison set is intentionally small and defined. It is a practical example of how a destination product can show regional variation without pretending that a single citywide label fits every beach.
| Beach record | Sky condition | Air temperature | Wind | Wave height | Beach Day Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Beach, Northern Sydney | Clear | 56.5°F | 4.9 mph | 3.1 ft | 82 |
| Newcastle Beach, Newcastle | Overcast | 55.6°F | 10.1 mph | 4.8 ft | 77 |
| Coogee Beach, Sydney | Clear | 55.8°F | 4.5 mph | 3.6 ft | 82 |
| South Cronulla Beach, Southern Sydney | Clear | 55.9°F | 4.7 mph | 4.1 ft | 82 |
The current pattern: similar air, different ocean context
Air temperatures are tightly grouped, from 55.6°F to 56.5°F, and three of the four records report clear conditions. The ocean fields tell a less uniform story. Palm Beach has the smallest reported wave height in this set at 3.1 ft, while Newcastle Beach has the largest at 4.8 ft and the highest reported wind at 10.1 mph. Coogee and South Cronulla sit between those examples at 3.6 ft and 4.1 ft respectively.
This is why a regional experience should use beach-level fields instead of one generic coastal status. A tourism page can surface the current record alongside its timestamp. A rental or concierge workflow can build a short, dated comparison card. A travel product can preserve the individual values in its UI rather than flattening the region into a single condition.
A product pattern for weekly beach updates
For a simple weekly module, query the beach record and its conditions history, then render the most recent dated entry. Keep the beach name, condition date, weather, ocean conditions, and score together in the response layer. If a field is absent, show it as unavailable rather than inferring a value.
GET /v1/beaches/{id}/
GET /v1/beaches/{id}/conditions/Beach Day API is designed for teams that need beach discovery plus current beach-level context in one developer-friendly interface. See the API documentation to explore endpoints, review coverage, or create an account to test a first integration.
Data notes
Observation window: September 27, 2026 00:00 Pacific through September 28, 2026 14:00 Pacific. Retrieval date: September 28, 2026. Scope: four recently refreshed Beach Day API records in New South Wales, not every beach in the region. Field caveats: weather and ocean-condition values are presented as separate condition fields, not as water-quality measurements. This report does not make safety recommendations. Water-quality values are not used for the comparison.