What the numbers mean.
Our surf climate is measured model data, not a guess. It is also open-ocean data, and that limit matters.
Surf climate
For each destination we pick a sea point close to the surfed coast and read ERA5 wave height, peak period, wave direction, wind and sea temperature. We take four days a month at 12:00 UTC from 2015 to 2024, then report monthly medians and the share of sampled days in each size range. Latest build: 2026-11-01.
ERA5's wave grid is about 50 km across. It describes the ocean off a coast, not the wave at a particular beach. Reefs, sandbars, headlands, tide and local wind all change what you ride, which is why a sheltered bay can have beginner waves on a day the table says 2.5 m. Use these figures to compare months and places. Use a live forecast and local advice to decide whether to paddle out.
Ratings and costs
Daily cost bands and 0–3 ratings for schools, board rental, remote work, family fit and crowds are our editorial estimates. We revise them when we review a guide. They are not measurements, and no partner pays to change them.
Live forecasts
We do not publish live surf forecasts yet. Surf forecasting needs a licensed commercial data feed and proper coastal modelling, and we would rather send you to a specialist than show a weak number.
Sources and licences
| What | Source | Licence and credit |
|---|---|---|
| Wave height, period and direction; wind; sea temperature | ERA5 reanalysis (ECMWF for the Copernicus Climate Change Service), through Google's public ARCO-ERA5 store | CC-BY 4.0. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use of this information. |
| Base maps | OpenFreeMap, built on OpenStreetMap and OpenMapTiles | Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Credit shown on the map. |
| World outline on the homepage | Natural Earth 1:110m land | Public domain |
| Fares by month | Travelpayouts Data API (recent Aviasales search results) | Cached fares, labelled with their date. Not a live quote. |
| Photographs | Wikimedia Commons, Flickr and Unsplash contributors | Licence and credit shown per photograph. |
The dataset behind our tools is at /data/destinations.json. If you reuse the ocean figures, keep the Copernicus credit above.