KITEFLIGHTBetaFreeride the Caribbean

Kite Wind

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Guide only. Forecasts, scores and gear sizes can be wrong. Check conditions on the beach, ride within your ability and never ride alone. Read the disclaimer

Right now

Forecast model, checked against the airport

Wind at the beach
–kt
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Waiting for data
Next 6 hours
Airport live
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Fetching METAR…
Airport raw report
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Where to ride

Best spots for your wind range

In this area

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Best elsewhere in the region

  1. Checking the region…

Ranked by how many daylight hours fall in your wind range (Settings), with side-shore wind scoring best and offshore, thunderstorms and heavy gusts ruling hours out. Each spot shows its difficulty rating and today's score out of 10. Tap a spot to open it.

Forecast

Tide: loading…
Kiteable Marginal No go Gust Your range Tide height Arrows show which way the wind is blowing, with north at the top (an arrow pointing left means wind from the east). The letters underneath say where it comes from. Red means offshore at this beach. Bottom row is the hour, in local time.
Waves–
Swell period–
Swell from–
Water–

Gear for the day

Selected day
Kite size for the best window–
From your quiver–Each hour's pick also shows in the hourly row above.
Board size–
Who the conditions suit

Kite size uses the common rule of weight × 2.4 ÷ wind in knots for a twin-tip, checked against Airush's size chart, with surfboards a touch bigger and foils much smaller. Board lengths follow typical retailer charts. Brands and designs vary, so treat these as a starting point and size down when it's gusty or you're unsure.

Rain & squalls

Loading live radar…
Checking
Looking for showers upwindReading the latest radar…
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Light → heavy rain Area 25 km upwind checked for showers

Local effects the forecast can miss. The forecast models work on grids 9–25 km wide, so they can't place individual showers. On a trade-wind day, a squall usually brings a burst of stronger, gustier wind just ahead of the rain (the gust front), often with a direction shift of 20–40°. Under and behind the rain the wind often drops sharply and can go light and patchy for 30–60 minutes. With 15–20 kt trades, a shower 30 km upwind can arrive in about an hour. Watch the radar loop for cells moving in from upwind, and come in early if a dark cell is heading your way. Live radar: RainViewer (last 2 hours, personal use). Clouds: NASA GIBS / NOAA GOES-East GeoColor.

Alerts

Checking…
Checking forecast, swell, pressure and tropical systems…

Automatic checks for the next 7 days, built from the forecast plus GDACS tropical cyclone tracking. They are not official warnings. For those, check your island's national weather service and the US National Hurricane Center.

Model check

Comparing forecast models…
ECMWF (European) GFS (US) ICON (German) Your range

When the three main models agree, the forecast is more reliable. A wide spread means the wind is hard to call, so check the live readings before you drive down. These lines show each model with your live and beach corrections applied, so compare their shapes and spread.

The week

Scroll sideways for all 7 days

Every 2 hours in daylight, local time. Wind and gusts in knots, coloured from light (grey-blue) through ideal (green) to strong (orange and red). Arrows point the way the wind blows, north at the top; a red arrow means offshore at this beach. Tap a day to open it in the forecast above.

Wind map

Selected day
12:00
0 → 12 → 16 → 22 → 28 → 35+ kt Arrows and moving streaks show where the wind blows to

Forecast models work on grids several kilometres wide, so neighbouring arrows often match. The map is best for seeing how strength and direction change through the day, not for spot-by-spot differences.

Best time to visit

From 7 years of history

The wind history for this spot loads when you reach this section.

Each month shows how often there was a session of 2 hours or more in your wind range (not offshore), the typical daylight wind and the hours that usually work. Prime is most days, Good is more than 4 in 10, Fair is 2 in 10 or more, and Quiet means the wind is usually lighter than your range. Based on 2019–2025 history (ERA5), read at the beach and on open water just offshore (models often read too light where their grid box is part land), then matched to the forecast model so it reads like the forecast. Change your wind range in Settings and it updates.

Top 10 Caribbean kite spots

Our pick of the region

    Chosen for reliable wind, room to ride, schools on the beach and the overall trip. Tap one to open its live forecast. Want to suggest a spot? Use the rider report form.

    Conditions in detail

    Pressure

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    How to read it in the Caribbean: the trade wind is driven by the high-pressure system out in the Atlantic. In the northern Caribbean (Bahamas, Turks & Caicos, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica), winter cold fronts also arrive with a pressure rise and a swing to north or north-west wind. Steady pressure around 1013–1016 hPa usually means steady trades. A fall of 2–3 hPa or more over a day often means a tropical wave or low is coming: expect squalls, gusts, wind shifts towards the south, then often a lull behind it. Rising pressure after a wave usually brings the trades back stronger. Tropical pressure also rises and falls about 1–2 hPa twice a day as normal, so look at the trend, not single readings.

    Sargassum

    Checking satellite…
    Near · 0–120 km east–Arrives within about 1–4 days
    Far · 120–320 km east–Arrives in about 4–10 days

    Rough risk from the NOAA/USF 3-day satellite floating-algae index (AFAI) over open water east of the spot, where sargassum drifts in from. It counts the share of cloud-free water showing floating algae: under 1% is low, 1–8% medium, over 8% heavy. Clouds hide sargassum, and this can't see what has already reached the beach. Cross-check with NOAA's daily inundation risk map and the USF monthly outlook.

    Compared with normal

    7-year history, 2019–2025
    Selected day–
    Normal for month–
    Difference from normal–

    Building the 7-year history. This runs once and takes about 15 seconds, then it's saved on this device.

    Average daylight wind (kt) % of daylight hours kiteable This week's forecast

    History comes from the ERA5 reanalysis, a 25 km reconstruction of past weather. It tends to read a little lighter than the beach and differs from forecast models, so treat the comparison as a guide. The kiteable share uses your wind range, beach correction and the NE–SE direction rule.

    Spot guide

    Difficulty Rating

    This spot on a normal day
    Today's forecast

    The spot rating describes the beach itself: launch, reef, waves and currents. The day rating takes that spot and adds the forecast wind, gusts, swell, tide and squalls, so a blue spot can turn black on a big day. Ratings are a guide for planning, not a guarantee. Always judge conditions on the beach.

    Natural hazards

    What to look out for
    This spot–
    LightningMost serious weather dangerKite lines and a wet rider make you the tallest target on a flat beach. If thunder is forecast or you hear it, don't launch. Land, unhook and pack down, get into a building or closed car, and wait 30 minutes after the last thunder. Squall lines and towering clouds upwind are the warning signs.
    Sun · UV index–Caribbean UV is often extreme by late morning. Rash vest, reef-safe sunscreen, and reapply between sessions.
    Portuguese man o' warOccasionalBlue floats with long trailing tentacles, blown onto windward beaches, most often in spring. Look out for warning flags. Never touch one, even dead on the sand: the tentacles still sting.
    SharksVery low riskShark incidents are rare across the Caribbean. Avoid riding at dusk, in murky water, or near fishing boats and fish-cleaning spots. There's no live map of untagged sharks; OCEARCH only tracks the few it has tagged.OCEARCH shark tracker
    Reef, coral and urchinsCommon injury riskMany Caribbean spots ride over shallow reef with fire coral and sea urchins. Wear booties where there's reef, watch the tide line above at low water, and don't put your feet down near a break.
    If stungBasic first aidGet out of the water. Lift off tentacles with gloves or tweezers without rubbing, rinse with seawater (not fresh water), then soak in hot water as hot as is comfortable. Get medical help for breathing trouble, chest pain or a large sting.

    Webcams & local checks

    See the water before you drive down

    Links open in a new tab. Most webcams don't offer a free feed that can be shown inside this page.

    Kite schools & rentals

    On this island

    Contact details were copied from each business's own website or listing when last checked (shown on each card). Businesses change, so confirm before you travel, and check the school is IKO or VDWS certified if you're booking lessons. Listing a business isn't an endorsement.

    Riders & community

    Rider reports

    From your Google Form

    Not set up yet. Follow the steps below, then paste your two links.

    Set up once, free: 1) Make a Google Form with questions such as Spot, Wind (kt), Sargassum, Crowd and Notes. 2) In the form's Responses tab, link it to a Google Sheet. 3) In the sheet, choose File → Share → Publish to web, pick the responses sheet and "Comma-separated values (.csv)", then Publish and copy the link. 4) Paste the form link and the CSV link above. Anyone you share the form with can post, and everyone using the app sees the latest reports.

    Videos

    Clips from this spot
    Find more on YouTube

    Videos are hosted on YouTube and belong to their creators. Thumbnails load from YouTube. Got a clip from this spot? Add it with your trip story below.

    Community

    Trip stories from riders

    No stories yet.

    Stories are written by riders and visitors and checked before they appear. They are the authors' own views, not the site's. Links go to the authors' own Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or websites.

    Events

    Kitesurf competitions and festivals

    Dates come from organisers and tourism boards and can change. Always confirm on the event's own page before you travel. Organising a competition, festival or a brand demo day where riders can try new gear? Let the site owner know and it can be listed here.

    Session log

    Saved on this device

    Your log stays in this browser on this device. Enter the wind you saw (from the beach station or airport) and the app compares it with what the forecast said for that hour. After a few sessions it suggests a beach correction. Export the CSV now and then as a backup.

    Settings · your wind range & calibration

    GFS is the default because, in a check against six Caribbean airports, it was closest to the real trade wind and gave realistic gusts. Live correction compares the last 3 days of forecast with the island's airport readings and scales the forecast to match. Beach correction is your own extra adjustment on top: if the beach usually blows 10% harder than this page says, set it to 10. Good and offshore directions are worked out from the way each beach faces.