Where the wind is in September

September is the month the Nordeste trade is at full strength and the Peruvian thermal is still switched on. It is also the month Europe stops being the answer. One number sorts the year: the share of September days with at least three consecutive hours over 12 knots. Three hours is a session rather than a gust, so the share is closer to riding hours than to any average.

It is modelled from a high-resolution 2023-2024 weather archive, which means it describes the sky over the spot, not a pole stuck in the sand. Where a destination has several spots, the number belongs to one of them, and I say which. The fifteen here are a spread across six regions rather than a straight ranking; eight more score high enough for the list and are named at the end.

Brazil's Nordeste coast

Jericoacoara sits at 100%, and the spot carrying it is Guriú, not the village bay. Jeri's own beach is now for swimmers and windsurfers, so the kiting moved out to Preá and Guriú, which runs 15-25 kt on trade winds locals call brisa. Afternoons can be stronger.

Taíba is also 100%, this time on its own beach: 18-32 kt in high season, 10-18 kt in low season, and days that reach 35 kt. Nordeste trades again. It is 75km and about 1.5 hours from Fortaleza, with a second, quieter lagoon at Taibinha for the days the main one fills up.

Ilha do Guajiru is the third at 100%, carried by Almofala up the coast, where the Torrões to Almofala downwind run gets 25-30 knots of Alísios with a thermal push building through the day. The catch is baked into the place. The pousadas sit on the spot, so you eat and sleep inside their orbit because there is nothing else in walking reach.

Two spots with no destination around them match all three: Praia de Tremembé at 100% and 12-22 kt in season, and Torrões at 100% on the same Alísios as Almofala.

Peru

Máncora reaches 98%, but read which spot. It is Lobitos, at 15-25 knots on season afternoons, with Baterias next door running 16-22 knots. The Máncora town beach itself scores 17% for the same month, which is the gap between a resort strip and a working thermal coast. Add 2-4 knots to a model forecast here; the thermal usually overdelivers.

Paracas is 97% on Laguna Grande, 15-25 kt. The Paracas-wide range is 18-25 kt, with occasional 30-plus Paraca days that arrive as sandstorms. It is a desert bay 3.5-4 hours south of Lima with no kite-camp scene attached, so turn up with your own plan.

The Red Sea and Jordan

Marsa Alam is 95%, carried by the North Channel, 12-30 on a thermal. The far-south option out of here is Wadi Lahami, 140km further down, a rider-capped camp at the end of a long desert transfer.

Aqaba is the quiet one at 70%, on Tala Bay, 18-22 knots on a normal windy day and 15-25 knots as the working range across the season. September is its strongest month of the year. Days above 35 knots do happen, and those are for intermediate and advanced riders only.

Indian Ocean

Mahé hits 95% at North East Point, 10-22 kt through the southeast trade season with 14-25 kt days reported. Check which coast you book: Beau Vallon, the bay with the infrastructure, is sheltered in exactly the season that works everywhere else on the island.

Kalpitiya is 93% on the lagoon, commonly 20-30 kt in summer on the southwest monsoon. It is a pilgrimage rather than a beach holiday, a strip of camps along the water with almost nothing to eat or drink beyond them.

Mauritius comes in through the north coast near Cap Malheureux at 88%, carried by Poste Lafayette over on the east side, 15-25 kt in the main season on the southeast trades. Cap Malheureux itself is a fishing village with a red-roofed church. You will sleep and eat in Grand Baie.

Southern Africa and the Pacific

Lüderitz is 87% at Guano Bay and carries the strongest September daily-max average of these 15, at 21.3 knots. Summer afternoons around town run over 40 km/h, about 22 kt, and southern Lüderitz reaches 30-45 kt.

Nobody has published a Guano Bay-only range. It is a foggy diamond port at the end of a lonely 350km road, with a speed course dug into its lagoon, and it rewards experienced riders chasing raw wind.

Noumea is 82% at Ilot Signal, 15-22 knots on the Alizés, thermally reinforced so the afternoon is the strong half of the day. The islets are a short boat ride from the Anse Vata strip you are already staying on, which almost no tropical kite trip gives you.

Auckland is the southern-spring entry at 72%, on Shakespeare Regional Park, 15-30 knots, and September and October carry the most strong-wind hours of the Auckland year. Skip Muriwai in summer: the sea breeze there runs 10-14 knots and is not worth the drive.

North America and Greece

San Francisco Bay holds 87% at Crissy Field, where 15-20+ knots at Anita Rock is the local go/no-go cue and the channel usually runs stronger than that. The water is cold and the current is strong, with shipping traffic and sailboats around you. Sherman Island out in the Delta is only 35% for the same month. September is a Cityfront month.

Karpathos - Afiartis is the only European name in the 15, at 73%, on Agrilaopotamos, which sits 3-8 knots under the leeward Afiartis bays. Those bays run 18-35 knots in a high-summer Meltemi. Up to about 25 knots the water inside Agrilaopotamos stays fairly flat, and the whole thing is next to the island's small southern airport.

The names without a paragraph of their own

Eight destinations score high enough to sit in this list. Seven of them share water with an entry above: Lagoinha at 98%, Ceará from Parajuru to Fortim at 97% and Ceará from Praia do Amor to Tibau do Sul at 92% on the same Nordeste coast; Pacasmayo at 95% on the same Peruvian thermal as Lobitos; Hurghada at 90% and El Gouna at 85% on the same Red Sea as Marsa Alam; Walvis Bay at 75% up the coast from Lüderitz. The eighth is Dakhla at 95%, which has a post of its own.

Who September is not for

Anyone whose plan is a European lake or a Meltemi at full strength. Navene on Lake Garda manages 18% of September days, Dervio on Lake Como 28%, and Punta Paloma in Tarifa 37%.

It is also not the month for the Seychelles bay you have probably seen photographed, or for Sherman Island, or for the Máncora town beach: in all three the wind is somewhere else on the same map. Karpathos at 73% is the last European entry standing, and it sits 20 points under Kalpitiya.