What happened to Magicseaweed Pro subscriptions?

Existing Magicseaweed Pro subscribers were converted to Surfline Premium memberships at the time of the shutdown.

Where did Magicseaweed's forecast data go?

Magicseaweed's underlying inputs were public data — NOAA NDBC buoy readings and global wave models such as WaveWatch III. That data is still freely available, which is why several sites can still produce forecasts covering the same spots. What was lost was Magicseaweed's presentation, spot pages and community, not the raw measurements.

What Happened to Magicseaweed?

Q: Why does magicseaweed.com redirect to Surfline?

Surfline owned Magicseaweed from 2017 and retired it as a separate product in 2023, consolidating both audiences onto Surfline. The domain now forwards there rather than serving its own forecasts.

Q: Is Magicseaweed coming back?

There has been no indication from Surfline that Magicseaweed will return. The site has redirected since 2023 and the community features were not migrated.

By Nick Peterson · Updated 2026-09-12 · ~5 min read

Answer: Magicseaweed was acquired by Surfline in 2017 and shut down in May 2023. Surfline announced the closure that April, and magicseaweed.com now redirects to Surfline — the forums, photo galleries and spot pages went with it. Existing MSW Pro subscribers were converted to Surfline Premium. The forecast data itself did not disappear: Magicseaweed ran on public NOAA buoy readings and global wave models, which is why other sites can still cover the same spots today. What was lost was the presentation and the community, not the measurements.

The timeline

Magicseaweed launched in the early 2000s out of Cornwall and spent two decades as one of the most widely used surf forecast sites in the world, particularly in the UK and Europe. Its spot pages, forums and photo galleries built a community that outlasted several redesigns.

In 2017, Magicseaweed was acquired by Surfline, the US surf forecasting company. For several years little changed visibly — MSW kept its own brand, site and audience.

In April 2023, Surfline announced that Magicseaweed would be retired and folded into Surfline. In May 2023 the site stopped serving its own forecasts and began redirecting to surfline.com. Residual content stayed partly reachable for a while afterwards, which is why some accounts date the shutdown to later in 2023.

Why does magicseaweed.com redirect to Surfline?

Because Surfline owned it. Running two overlapping forecast products aimed at broadly the same audience is expensive, and consolidating onto one brand removed that duplication. If you type magicseaweed.com today you land on Surfline.

Magicseaweed Pro subscribers were not left stranded — those subscriptions were converted into Surfline Premium memberships.

Is Magicseaweed coming back?

There is no indication that it is. The redirect has been in place since 2023, and the parts people most often ask about — the forums and the photo archive — were not migrated anywhere. Treat it as permanently gone.

What did Magicseaweed actually do that people miss?

Two things come up repeatedly, and they are worth being specific about because they explain why a generic weather app does not feel like a replacement.

It showed swell components, not just a wave height. An MSW spot page broke the sea state into its parts: primary swell height, period and direction, secondary swell, and wind on top. That matters because a 3ft swell at 16 seconds and a 3ft swell at 7 seconds are completely different sessions. Period is what separates a groundswell with real power from local windswell, and MSW put it in front of you rather than burying it.

Its spot pages were free and deep. Every break had its own page with a full forecast table, and you did not hit a paywall to see several days out. For a lot of surfers that was the entire daily routine.

The forums and photo galleries were the third piece, and that one genuinely has no replacement.

Where did the forecast data go?

This is the part that surprises people. Magicseaweed was not built on proprietary measurements. Like essentially every surf forecast, it drew on public sources — buoy readings from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center and global wave models such as WaveWatch III.

That data is still public and still free. The models have improved since 2023. What Magicseaweed added was interpretation: which spots to map to which buoys, how to present swell components, and a community that argued about the rest. The raw inputs never went anywhere, which is why several sites can still produce credible forecasts for the same breaks.

What should ex-Magicseaweed surfers use now?

Honestly, it depends on what you used MSW for.

If you want the cams and the ratings MSW had: Surfline. That is literally where MSW's data and cameras went, and it has the largest cam network of any surf service. Most of it requires a paid membership.

If you want a wind and swell map to plan a week ahead: Windy. It is a general weather tool with an excellent wave model layer, free, and better than MSW ever was at the synoptic view. It is not a spot-level surf report.

If you want free buoy data with no interpretation at all: NDBC directly. Authoritative, free, and completely raw — you do the reading.

If what you miss is the swell-component detail and the free spot pages: that is the gap LazySurfer was built for. It reads the same NOAA buoys MSW did, shows swell height, period and direction rather than a single number, and — because it learns from the sessions you log — rates conditions against what you have said is good, rather than against a generic scale. It is free to use, and it is an iOS app rather than a website, which is the honest catch if you wanted a browser replacement.

We have a fuller side-by-side of all of these, including SwellInfo and Windfinder, on our Magicseaweed alternatives page.

Quick answers

When did Magicseaweed shut down? May 2023, announced April 2023.

Who owned Magicseaweed? Surfline, from 2017 until the shutdown.

Did MSW Pro subscribers lose their subscription? No — they were converted to Surfline Premium.

Are the MSW forums archived anywhere? Not officially. They were not migrated.

Can I still get forecasts for my old MSW spot? Yes. The underlying buoy and model data is public, and several services — including Surfline, Windy and LazySurfer — cover the same breaks.