ShoreScore / Best beach today

BEST BEACH TODAY

Best beach on the Emerald Coast today

As of 12:23 AM ET on Friday, September 25, 2026. Scores move through the day as the weather does, so check again before you leave.

Blue Mountain Beach, Destin (Henderson Beach), Miramar Beach and Panama City Beach tie for the best beach on the Emerald Coast today, each with a ShoreScore of 93 out of 100: Definitely Go.

Clear skies, warm air and water and calm surf. The catch: moderate rip current risk.

Next: Grayton Beach at 92, Dune Allen Beach at 91 and Fort Walton Beach at 91.

See the full day and best window for Blue Mountain Beach

All 14 beaches on the Emerald Coast, ranked

Highest ShoreScore first. The word is the call the app makes at that score.

  1. 1Blue Mountain BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.93
  2. 2Destin (Henderson Beach)Emerald CoastDefinitely Go.93
  3. 3Miramar BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.93
  4. 4Panama City BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.93
  5. 5Grayton BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.92
  6. 6Dune Allen BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.91
  7. 7Fort Walton BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.91
  8. 8Bid-A-Wee BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.90
  9. 9Laguna BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.90
  10. 10Opal BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.90
  11. 11Navarre BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.89
  12. 12Perdido Key (Johnson Beach)Emerald CoastDefinitely Go.88
  13. 13Pensacola BeachEmerald CoastDefinitely Go.87
  14. 14Fort Pickens (Gulf Islands)Emerald CoastGo.83

More best-beach lists

Florida

BY REGION

First Coast · Fun Coast · Space Coast · Treasure Coast · The Palm Beaches · Gold Coast · The Beaches of Miami · Florida Keys · Paradise Coast · Fort Myers & Islands · Suncoast · Tampa Bay · Forgotten Coast · Emerald Coast

NEAR A CITY

Miami · Fort Lauderdale · Boca Raton · West Palm Beach · Orlando · Tampa · St. Petersburg · Sarasota · Fort Myers · Naples · Jacksonville · St. Augustine · Daytona Beach · Melbourne · Key West · Pensacola · Destin · Panama City · Tallahassee

How this list works

Every beach on the Emerald Coast gets one ShoreScore, a number from 0 to 100 that says how good a beach day it is. It comes from live weather, wind, surf, official water quality tests, the seaweed risk and rain radar, added up from now until sunset. Before sunrise and after dark it covers the whole day's light instead.

The words are the same call the app makes at each score: Definitely Go, Go, Roll the Dice, Maybe Not and Pass. When no beach reaches Go, this page says so instead of crowning a winner.

This list ranks the same numbers the live map shows, read at the time printed at the top. A beach with missing data is left out, never scored low: unknown is not bad. Open any beach for its hour by hour forecast and the best window to go.

Informational only, not for safety decisions. Lifeguards, beach flags and official notices come first at every beach, whatever the number says.

How our numbers work