For this week’s State of the Beaches report, four recently refreshed Port Phillip records show a clear split in the water-quality fields: Elwood, Williamstown, and Sorrento carry an A grade, while St Kilda carries an F grade. The latest record for each is dated October 26, 2026, giving developers a small but concrete current-data comparison for the week ahead.
The four-record view
The comparison set is intentionally narrow: Elwood, St Kilda, Williamstown, and Sorrento in Victoria, Australia. In the latest Beach Day API conditions records, the reported water-quality fields are:
- Elwood: A grade, 20 orgs/100mL.
- Williamstown: A grade, 10 orgs/100mL.
- Sorrento: A grade, 30 orgs/100mL.
- St Kilda: F grade, 1,300 orgs/100mL.
That is a useful example of why a product should retain the field-level record rather than reduce every beach to one generic regional label. Three beaches in the same weekly comparison set share an A grade, while the fourth has a materially different current observation.
Conditions are a separate layer
The same October 26 records also show different weather and ocean-condition fields. Elwood and Williamstown were listed as clear with 22.1 and 22.6 mph wind respectively. Sorrento was listed with drizzle, 39.8 mph wind, and a 6.0 ft wave height. Those values describe conditions, not water-quality measurements, and should remain separate in a product interface and data model.
A practical pattern for coastal products
A travel, tourism, rental, or local-information product can use this kind of record-level difference to decide what it displays and when it refreshes a destination page. The useful implementation pattern is to preserve the beach identifier, conditions date, water-quality fields, and weather or ocean fields as separate inputs. That makes it possible to show a dated status panel, explain what was actually returned for a place, and avoid implying that one beach’s record represents an entire bay.
Developers can retrieve beach profiles and dated conditions through the Beach Day API docs, then use the fields that fit their product’s display and alerting rules. See coverage or pricing to evaluate the API for a coastal data feature.
Data notes
Observation window: Sunday, October 25, 2026 through Monday, October 26, 2026, Pacific time. Retrieved: October 26, 2026. Scope: four recently refreshed Beach Day API records in Port Phillip, not every beach in the region or worldwide. Water-quality grades and bacteria fields above are reported record values, not safety recommendations. Weather and ocean conditions are distinct fields and are not water-quality observations.