Real-time weather and coastal conditions for San Diego County.
SkyQuant SD is a single live map of San Diego County. It layers GOES satellite imagery and NEXRAD weather radar over the county, adds beach water quality from the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health, the Tijuana River plume forecast, National Weather Service alerts, and a wildlife radar mode that shows birds, bats and insects in the radar returns. A time slider moves the imagery through the last six hours and, for the forecast layers, the next six.
The app draws live data and needs a working network connection to its data server. If you are on a weak connection or the server is briefly unreachable, the affected layer reports the problem and keeps retrying — nothing needs to be reset. A blank layer can also be the honest answer: the radar and satellite layers deliberately draw nothing ahead of the current time unless the layer is a forecast, and the app labels that on screen.
The Tijuana River plume and pathogen-risk layers are experimental research model output, not public-health guidance. They are shown with the modelling group's own disclaimer, and they are not a substitute for official beach postings or closures. For swimming decisions, use the county's own beach status — which the app also displays.
That is expected. There is no push server: the app asks iOS for an opportunistic background check, which iOS schedules a few times a day based on how you actually use the app, and the check also runs immediately whenever the app is open. Lab samples are published roughly daily and a status change is rarer still, so a notification may be hours behind the posting. The feature is not, and does not claim to be, real time.
Check that a home beach is selected in Settings and that notifications are allowed for SkyQuant SD in the iOS Settings app. Only beaches that the county publishes samples for can be chosen as a home beach. Note that the first reading after you pick a beach is recorded silently — you are notified about changes from then on, not about what was already posted.
Public sources: NOAA/NESDIS GOES satellite imagery, NEXRAD and MRMS radar and the HRRR forecast model from NOAA, National Weather Service alerts, San Diego County DEH beach water quality, and research plume and pathogen models from UCSD/SCCOOS. The app reads them through its operator's Sky Quant data server, which does the processing.
Questions, bug reports and feature requests go to the project's issue tracker on GitHub:
A useful report says what you were looking at, what you expected, and what the app showed instead — plus your iOS version and device.
SkyQuant SD collects no personal data. The full policy is here: Privacy Policy.