Alabama

Dauphin Island West End

Alabama's best public Gulf beach for fossil hunters. Storm-cut shell hash and inlet bars occasionally throw Miocene shark teeth onto the sand.

⚠ Partial inputs

today

Poor

0.9ft swing · neap tide · low 4:42 PM · ~1.0ft above predicted (onshore wind) · +20 event boost

Today at a glance

Updated 2026-07-21T08:52:09.734Z

Tough day — set expectations low. Best window opens around the 4:42 PM low (0.2 ft, likely 1.0 ft above NOAA → less beach). Brisk N winds (20 mph) — expect chop; onshore at the low will drown the beach face; seas 2–3 ft, some stir.

Next 3 days: Tomorrow is the pick (57); today drops to 37 — skip if you can.

Best Window Today

4:42 PM

Plan around the poor low-tide window. 0.9ft swing · neap tide · low 4:42 PM · ~1.0ft above predicted (onshore wind) · +20 event boost.

Hunt score

Poor

Astronomical low

0.2 ft

4:42 PM

Predicted real low

1.1 ft

above NOAA by 1.0 ft

Low-window wind

24 mph

Onshore (drowns beach)

Tides: NOAA Dauphin Island, AL (station 8735180)

Best window this week

Wed, Jul 22 · 5:22 PM

1.2ft swing · neap tide · low 5:22 PM · ~1.2ft below predicted (offshore wind) · +20 event boost

Score

Good

Confidence: Partial — noaa tide station, on-site outcomes. Hover the badge above for the input-by-input breakdown.

Tonight's moon

First quarter

49% illuminated

Sunrise 11:05 AM · Sunset 12:54 AM

Wind right now

20 mph from N

Gusts 22 mph · best from S

Wind is ONSHORE and strong — water pushed against the cliff, beach may disappear at low tide.

Past 7 days

Compare model output to your actual visits.

Next 7 days

Plan a trip →

▼ means the forecast wind will likely push the real low below NOAA's prediction (more beach to hunt). ▲ means it will likely sit above the prediction (less beach). Rough rule: ~0.04 ft per mph of sustained wind during the low-tide window.

Tide times: NOAA CO-OPS station 8735180 (Dauphin Island, AL) — local time, MLLW datum. Click to verify on NOAA. Cards show LOWS only (best for hunting); highs are visible on the tide curve below.

Tide curve · next 48h

🌤️ Weather & Wave Forecast

Impact on visibility and stir-up over the next 5 days.

Onshore Wind: Pushes water in (tide sits higher) and stirs up the bottom. Good for "new" teeth, bad for visibility.

Offshore Wind: Water blown out (tide sits lower). Maximum beach exposure for hunting the low tide line.

Why today scores 37

The Hunt Score blends tide range, lunar phase, daylight timing, recent stir, wind setup, and surf.

Wave height 2.2 ft

Best low

4:42 PM at 0.2 ft

Predicted real low

1.1 ft

Wind deviation

Less beach by 1.0 ft

Explain this scoreShow breakdown ▾

💡

Analysis

Marginal. Most of the productive zone is likely covered.

Tide range

7.8 / 50

Today's swing is 0.9 ft (saturates at 6 ft = 50 pts).

Spring tide

1.8 / 15

Within ±2 days of a new or full moon = wider swing.

Daylight timing

11.3 / 15

Low in daylight = you can actually hunt.

Recent stir

0.0 / 10

Past 72h onshore wind churn (only counts hours that already happened).

Wind setup at low

-7.6 / 10

Forecast wind piles 1.0 ft of water around the low.

Surf bonus

4.0 / 5

1–4 ft of recent surf = clean sorting; >7 ft = unfishable.

Recent rainfall

0.0 / 3

No measurable rain in the past 48h — no runoff signal.

Storm multipliermultiplier

1.00×

Peak gust 33 mph — below 25 mph threshold, no boost applied.

Event boostadded

+20

Manual + auto events (storms, drought, beach renourishment).

Why not higher? The biggest unused headroom today is tide range (+42.2 pts available). A day with that maxed out would score around 79.

Show the math

components: 7.8 + 1.8 + 11.3 + 0.0 + -7.6 + 4.0 + 0.0 = 17.3 + event boost +20 = 37.3 final = 37

What's NOT in this score

We are deliberate about which factors to include. These are not currently in the model:

Hunt pressure. A “hunts this week” chip is shown on each location page for transparency, but it does not change the score yet. We need more outcomes per site before a penalty would be statistically meaningful.
Wave period / swell direction. We use wave height only. Long-period groundswell sorts material differently than short wind chop, but Open-Meteo doesn't expose period reliably.
Barometric pressure trend. Falling pressure = approaching storm = building stir. Currently we wait for the wind to actually arrive.
Water temperature, clarity, salinity. Affects comfort but not (directly) what teeth wash up.
Weekday vs weekend. A 70 on Tuesday is often better in practice than a 70 on Saturday because of crowds, but we don't adjust for that.
Beach renourishment. Fresh sand buries everything. We capture this only when an admin logs a manual event — there's no auto-detection.

If you think we should add one of these, log a hunt with notes — every rated outcome helps us decide which signals actually predict tooth count.

Hunt Score

Sum of components + 20 event boost, clamped 0–100.

Score model 2026.04.29 · how this is calculated

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