State of the Beaches is Beach Day API’s weekly look at recently refreshed records, focused on what product teams can actually use in the coming week. This edition reviews four Port Phillip records refreshed on September 7, 2026, retrieved from the live API on September 8, 2026. All four carry non-synthetic water-quality observations, giving developers a compact, defined comparison set rather than a broad regional ranking.
A four-record snapshot
The selected records are St Kilda, Williamstown, Elwood, and Sorrento in Victoria. Their latest conditions entries are all dated September 7. Three returned grade A with a bacteria field of 10 orgs/100mL; Sorrento returned grade B with 86 orgs/100mL.
| Beach record | Latest entry date | Returned grade | Returned bacteria field | Beach Day Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Kilda | September 7 | A | 10 orgs/100mL | 82 |
| Williamstown | September 7 | A | 10 orgs/100mL | 82 |
| Elwood | September 7 | A | 10 orgs/100mL | 82 |
| Sorrento | September 7 | B | 86 orgs/100mL | 73 |
This is a snapshot of four recently refreshed records, not a claim about every beach in Port Phillip or a recommendation for a beach visit. The useful signal is that the response carries both a categorical grade and a labeled bacteria field, alongside conditions and the Beach Day Score.
What changed in the returned records
The series history for these same records shows why date-aware product design matters. In the September 7 entries, St Kilda and Elwood each return A and 10 orgs/100mL, while their August 31 entries returned F with 960 and 580 orgs/100mL respectively. Sorrento’s current B and 86 orgs/100mL follows a C and 110 orgs/100mL in its August 31 entry. A product that displays beach context should render the dated record supplied by the API, rather than treating an older entry as a permanent property of a beach.
Use the observation and condition fields together
Each of the four current records also includes weather, ocean-condition fields, and a Beach Day Score. Those fields answer different product questions. Water quality is its own observed field. Weather and ocean conditions describe a separate part of the beach context. The score is a decision-oriented product field, not a replacement for the returned water-quality observation.
For this defined four-record set, the values line up as follows:
- St Kilda: grade A, 10 orgs/100mL, score 82.
- Williamstown: grade A, 10 orgs/100mL, score 82.
- Elwood: grade A, 10 orgs/100mL, score 82.
- Sorrento: grade B, 86 orgs/100mL, score 73.
For a destination page, rental concierge, or beach comparison feature, preserve those distinctions in the UI. A simple grade badge can be useful, but retaining the dated bacteria field and condition date gives the user a clearer view of what the record represents. Do not infer a missing observation, and do not use a score as a water-quality grade.
A practical API pattern for weekly product updates
Developers building a weekly digest or regional comparison can start with a beach detail request, then read the latest item from that beach’s conditions endpoint. The detail response provides the current beach profile and current fields; the conditions response provides the dated entry needed to avoid showing an undated value.
GET /v1/beaches/{id}/
GET /v1/beaches/{id}/conditions/In an application layer, store or display the condition date with the returned grade, keep water-quality logic separate from weather and ocean-condition rendering, and make null handling explicit. The Beach Day API documentation has the endpoint reference, and the coverage page helps teams evaluate where beach data fits their product.
Data notes
Observation window: September 7, 2026, within this edition’s Sunday September 6 00:00 through Monday September 8 run window, Pacific time. Retrieval date: September 8, 2026. Scope: four recently refreshed Port Phillip beach records, not all beaches worldwide or all beaches in the region. Water-quality values above are the non-synthetic observations returned in the dated API records. Weather and ocean-condition fields are separate from water-quality observations. This report does not provide safety advice.