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Where to surf in May

Every country whose season we have recorded, ranked for May, with the water you would be getting in.

May opens the southern hemisphere. Nicaragua and South Africa go to their peak, and the gap between them says everything: 29° at Popoyo, 18° at Jeffreys Bay, for the same rating. Atlantic Europe swings the other way and Portugal, Morocco and the Canaries drop back together. Three coasts further north do the opposite: France, whose sandbanks have rebuilt on water that has passed 16°, Ireland, which keeps April's settled weather and adds four hours of daylight to it, and Wales, where the sea finally moves and the winter wind has gone.

Sorted by the coasts at their peak in May, then by verdict.

CountryMay on that coastWaterPeak season
NicaraguaExcellent29°Peak
South AfricaExcellent18°Peak
ColombiaVery good28°–
Costa RicaVery good30°–
FranceVery good16°–
IrelandVery good12°–
MexicoVery good––
MozambiqueVery good26°–
PanamaVery good––
Sri LankaVery good29°–
WalesVery good12°–
Canary IslandsGood20°–
IcelandGood8°–
MoroccoGood19°–
PortugalGood16°–
SenegalGood22°–
SpainGood16°–

Verdicts are read from published surf guides and signed by us. Temperatures are monthly means published for one named break per country, not an average of a coastline. Swell height is left out on purpose: no source publishes it month by month for all of these coasts, and a figure measured one way here and modelled another way there would not compare.

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