Methodology
Where the numbers come from
Every number on this site comes from public, reproducible model data. This page explains what was computed, how, and where the numbers are known to be wrong.
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Wind: ERA5 reanalysis, 2015–2024
Hourly wind speed and direction at 10 m above ground, gusts and air temperature were downloaded from the Open-Meteo Historical Weather API using the ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF), for 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2024, in knots and local time.
For each day we keep the daytime hours from 11:00 to 18:00 and take their mean wind speed. Hours were grouped in local clock time as Open-Meteo applied it for 2015–2024: Moroccan time, which was UTC+1 for most of the period (Spanish time for Tarifa). Morocco has used UTC+0 all year since 20 September 2026, so this window is about 10:00–17:00 on today’s Moroccan clock. “Mean wind” in the tables is the average of these daily means for the month. “Days ≥ 12 kn” and “Days ≥ 15 kn” are the share of days whose daytime mean reaches 12 or 15 knots. Directions are the share of daytime hours with at least 8 knots, by eight compass sectors; the three most frequent sectors are shown. “Air max” is the mean of each day’s highest daytime air temperature.
Rankings (month pages, map, best months) use the share of days ≥ 12 kn, then the mean wind to break ties.
Known limits of ERA5
ERA5 is a global grid of roughly 25–30 km. It smooths local effects such as thermal wind and acceleration along the coast, so the wind measured on a beach is often stronger than these figures. Use them to compare months and spots, not as a promise of wind on a given day.
Essaouira and Moulay Bouzerktoun fall in the same ERA5 grid cell, so their wind numbers are identical. Rankings show them as one row.
ERA5 strongly underestimates the Levante at Tarifa, an east wind funnelled by the Strait of Gibraltar. Tarifa is included only as a comparison and its numbers should not be used to rank it against Moroccan spots.
Sea: Open-Meteo Marine API, 2022–2024
Monthly means of hourly significant wave height, mean wave period and sea-surface temperature come from the Open-Meteo Marine API for 2022–2024, at an offshore model point near each spot. These are offshore model values: wave height at the beach depends on the spot, the tide and the sea bed. For Dakhla the point is on the ocean side of the peninsula, so it says nothing about the lagoon.
Coordinates and distances
Spot coordinates are the approximate points used to query the data, not the exact launch area. Distances are great-circle (haversine) distances between those points, rounded to the nearest 5 km (1 km under 20 km), and labelled “as the crow flies”. Road distances are always longer. Airport coordinates come from the public-domain OurAirports dataset.
Levels and water types
Levels and water types are only given where a source supports them. Where we could not verify the conditions (Tarfaya, Tarifa, and the level at Oualidia), the spot is marked “not rated” or “not classified” rather than guessed. Imsouane and Taghazout are marked as surf spots.
About the school link
On the pages for the Essaouira area (Essaouira, Moulay Bouzerktoun, Sidi Kaouki) we link to one kitesurf school in Essaouira, Essaouira Watersports, for readers who want lessons. No other page links to a school or business. The rankings, levels and water types come only from the data and sources described above and are not influenced by that link.
Frequently asked questions
+Why are Essaouira and Moulay Bouzerktoun identical?
Both points fall inside the same ERA5 grid cell (about 25–30 km wide), so the model returns the same wind for both. The real local differences between the two spots are not visible in this data.
+Why does Tarifa look calmer than Moroccan spots?
ERA5 strongly underestimates Tarifa’s Levante, the east wind funnelled by the Strait of Gibraltar. The low numbers are a limit of the model grid, not a description of Tarifa.
+What does “% of days ≥ 12 kn” mean?
It is the share of days in that month, over 2015–2024, whose mean wind between 11:00 and 18:00 (Moroccan clock time of the period, ≈ 10:00–17:00 on today’s UTC+0 clock) reached at least 12 knots at 10 m in the ERA5 data.
+Are the wave heights what I will see at the beach?
No. They are monthly means of significant wave height at an offshore model point. Waves at the beach depend on the spot, the tide and the sea bed.
+Why is Taghazout in a kite atlas?
To be honest about it: in ten years of data no month has more than 3% of days reaching a 12-knot daytime mean. It is a surf destination, not a kite spot.