What you can explore:
The portal hosts demo datasets for seven regions:

• Auckland, Tamar, and Bluff — operational barotropic tidal models with residual and tidal forcing
  
• Taranaki — 3D baroclinic configuration
• Torres Strait — global tidal model output
• Solent (UK) and Long Island Sound (US) — barotropic tidal domains
  
• 
  

Pick a region from the sidebar and the map flies to the domain. Toggle Current (S-111) for a vector field coloured by speed; switch on Elevation (S-104) for water-level contours. Use the time slider to step through the forecast and hover anywhere for values in knots or metres.

Try it — and download the files:
The map is only half the point. For each region you can download the original S-111 and S-104 HDF5 files directly from the portal sidebar. These are the same Edition 2 products we ship operationally: S-104 regular-grid water levels and S-111 irregular-node surface currents.

We have tested these exports in SeaIQ and Qastor, confirming that our files load, display, and animate correctly in leading maritime navigation and port-management software. 

Part of a larger picture:
The Demo Portal sits alongside our operational SeaScope products — from national-scale SCHISM forecasting to regional digital twins like SeaScope Surf at Raglan, Seascope Bluff or Seascope Auckland. Where those platforms deliver full operational intelligence for specific users.

If you need S-100 export for your own hydrodynamic or tidal model, additional regions, or a full operational deployment, get in touch.

Try it now: s100.seascope.io/

The system is built on a fully coupled modelling framework implemented within the Oceanum infrastructure. At its core, a SCHISM hydrodynamic model resolves the tidal dynamics, coastal circulation, and wave–current interactions within the embayment at high spatial resolution. This hydrodynamic component is dynamically coupled with a WWM wave model, allowing for explicit feedback between evolving wave fields and ambient currents. This coupling is essential in a site such as Raglan, where tidal modulation and bathymetric steering strongly influence breaking wave characteristics at multiple point breaks.

Boundary conditions are supplied through a nested configuration that ensures consistency across scales. Offshore wave conditions are provided by an Oceanum wave model, which propagates swell systems generated across the South Pacific into the regional domain. Atmospheric forcing is derived from a combination of high-resolution PredictWind fields and ECMWF products, ensuring that both local wind variability and synoptic-scale atmospheric structures are accurately represented. At the ocean boundaries, Copernicus Marine Service datasets provide consistent large-scale sea level and circulation constraints, maintaining physical realism in the open boundary forcing.

The modelling system is executed in a daily operational cycle, in which a fully coupled SCHISM–WWM simulation is run once per day. Particular attention is given to the interaction between swell propagation, tidal elevation changes, and nearshore bathymetry, which together control wave breaking patterns across the different Raglan surf breaks.

A key feature of SeaScope Surf is the extraction of directional wave spectra at discrete surf locations. Instead of relying solely on bulk parameters such as significant wave height or peak period, the system provides full frequency–direction spectra at each break. This allows a much more detailed understanding of wave energy distribution, including the presence of multiple swell systems and their evolution through the coastal zone. From these spectra, additional derived parameters are computed, including swell partitioning and local transformation indices that describe how offshore wave energy is redistributed by refraction, shoaling, and breaking processes.

In addition to wave modelling, the system integrates observational data from tidal gauges provided by WRC. These instruments deliver water level measurements at one-minute resolution, which are used both for real-time validation and for spectral analysis of sea level variability. The comparison between modelled and observed sea levels provides an important constraint on the hydrodynamic performance of the SCHISM component.

A key output derived from the tide gauge is a practical new surf metric: the Set Rhythm. Computed from spectral analysis of the water level over the previous hour, it quantifies the number of wave groups arriving per hour together with their relative intensity, providing a simple and robust descriptor of daily surf conditions based directly on in-situ observations. It also enables comparison with previous days : is today more, less, or similarly 'setty' than the yesterday ? What makes this particularly valuable is that it comes directly from in-situ measurements at the boat ramp itself, not from a model — making it a ground-truth indicator of the real-time conditions.

Overall, SeaScope Surf represents a fully integrated digital ocean system for the Raglan region. By combining advanced numerical modelling, multi-source forcing datasets, and high-frequency observational data, it delivers a consistent and operationally relevant description of coastal dynamics. The result is a platform that not only predicts wave conditions, but also translates complex ocean physics into actionable surf intelligence at the scale of individual breaks.

During low wave conditions, the inner Lyall Bay water remains quite isolated from the outer Bay and the adjacent coastal circulation and its strong tidal flows. This amount of disconnection has two important effects from a water quality perspective. While untreated sewage from the offshore outfall has no direct path to the inner Bay, any sewage that does enter the inner Bay (for example due to previous weather conditions) is not readily flushed out. See Figure 2 for a typical low wave flow map. 

During high waves and southerly wind conditions, a very different picture emerges - particularly during the outgoing tide stage. Here, sewage discharge from the outfall connects with a strong onshore directed flow along the west side of the outer Bay, directing sewage toward the inner Bay and the shoreline. During these southerly storms the inner Bay has a distinct clockwise circulation pattern, which means the sewage is distributed all along the beach and only slowly disperses out to the adjacent coast. See Figure 3. 

During energetic waves events, onshore Stokes drift will further enhance the potential for pollutant connection with Lyall Bay and should be included in dispersion simulations (Figure 4). Our modelling has also shown it can lead to an underestimation of intrusion within the harbour if omitted.

Overall, this is not a straightforward process — the configuration of these circulation cells is strongly modulated by the interplay of tidal stage, wind, wave energy, and wave incidence. A high-resolution model is therefore valuable to reliably drive the dispersion modelling.

These insights can be applied operationally to help time outfall shutdowns or flow reductions during periods when connection with Lyall Bay is most likely.

We hope these tools serve as a valuable resource for identifying and planning around expected pollution peaks while the issue remains unresolved.

The map is based on hydrodynamic simulations using our 3D SCHISM model, which accounts for tides, currents, and water mixing, combined with a Lagrangian model that tracks water masses over time.

Using the slider below, you can explore the spread of the wastewater plume at different times of the day. Click on the map to view a timeseries for a specific location. The values range from 0 to 1, where 1 represents the maximum concentration at the pipe, and 0.5 indicates the plume has been diluted by half.

Using this tool, residents, researchers, and decision-makers can:

• Track the movement of pollutants hour by hour
• Identify areas of high concentration and potential environmental impact
• Support planning for mitigation or monitoring activities

Below, you can explore the map interactively. Use the time slider to move through the day and see how pollutant levels change across the harbour.

About the Data
Our model is updated daily using data from the Oceanum Datamesh platform. The map shows surface pollution concentrations. The app can access directly here www.seascope.io