Surfing in Mexico

Overview of La Ticla Point, Michoacan

Mexico has many prime, world-class surf spots

Mexico has 9,330 kilometers of coastline (over 6,000 miles), width the the best surfing breaks and wave action being found on the Pacific side. This stretch of coast is covered with beach breaks, point breakss, reefs and river mouths, affording an enormous variety of prime surfing spots all up and down it’s extension, and waves of all types and configuration from slow rollers to gnarly, hollow tubes. Many of the more accessible surf spots can get crowded, both with local  surfers and those coming in from foreign parts, but Mexico still has a lot of remote surf spots where you can get in the water and have plenty of space for just your own self.

The Mexican Pacific has very favorable surf spots in Baja California, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas, with many of them being in the high-performance range. There’s at least one good surf spot near almost any major vacation destination such as Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Ixtapa, Acapulco or Huatulco.

South-facing beaches along the Mexico Pacific coast gets surf generated, for the most part, from storms off New Zealand and Antarctica. The best time for this wave action is from May through October. West-facing beaches tend to get better surf action from Arctic storms during the winter months, from December through March.

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Surf Forecasts:  Weather and Water Temperature

Wave height and direction map from NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration)/NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Protection)–  offers an animated map that shows 5 day (120 hours) forecasts at 6 hour intervals.

NOAA Wavewatch II wave models and animations. Of most use for Mexico are the Pacific Ocean from Global and the West Coast Zoom (for Baja area) in the dropdown menu.

Wave models, weather models and altimetry available from StormSurf

Wave and water temperature guide from the Secretaria de la Marina (Mexican Navy)

Ocean water temperatures for Mexican coastal waters, from the UNAM - Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

Oceanweather.com has a good sea surface temperature map.

The Weather Channel has another sea surface temperature map

Tides

Tidal information for some areas of Mexico is available from the Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina

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Originally posted 2009-07-28 12:15:45.