Live forecast for Famara Beach (Teguise (Lanzarote), Las Palmas). Water temperature, wave height, wind, beach index 1-10 and best time to swim. Coordinates 29.1180, -13.5530.
Famara, inside Chinijo Archipelago Natural Park, offers 6 km of sand at the foot of a 600 m cliff. It is the Canary Islands' top surfing beach alongside El Confital. Tides can pull the water back up to 200 m.
Orientation: north, approximate length 6000 m, sand type: golden sand. No current Blue Flag award. Services: surf schools, beach bars in La Caleta and no facilities along most of the sand. Access: From the LZ-402. Free parking at La Caleta de Famara.
The WhatAWeather beach index combines six meteorological variables into a 0-10 score: air temperature (best above 22 °C), sea surface temperature from the Open-Meteo Marine model (best above 20 °C), wind speed (best below 20 km/h), significant wave height (best below 0.8 m), cloud cover (best below 30 %) and accumulated rainfall (best below 0.5 mm). A value of 8-10 means perfect, 6-7 good, 4-5 acceptable and below 4 we advise against swimming.
For the official microbiological status of Spanish bathing waters consult the NAYADE system run by the Spanish Ministry of Health. WhatAWeather displays an informational jellyfish warning when sea temperature exceeds 23 °C and the wind blows from the east (levante), a situation statistically correlated with sightings in the Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar. This is an orientation indicator and does not replace official Red Cross or city council bulletins.
The sea is at its warmest in October, averaging 23.3 °C, and at its coldest in March, at 19.1 °C. On land the month with the highest daily maxima is August, which averages 25.0 °C.
The sea stays above 22 °C for 4 months of the year (August, September, October and November). The gap between air and sea temperature is the figure that misleads most: in August the air reaches 25.0 °C against 22.2 °C in the water. Famara is not a beach for carefree swimming, even so: the currents and the shifting bottom mean staying near the shore and keeping an eye on children even when the sea looks calm.
In July and August the mean wave height is around 1.8 m, a shorebreak present almost daily, more for a board than for an inflatable. In winter the mean climbs to 2.2 m, with the annual peak in March at 2.7 m. The prevailing summer wind comes from the north-northeast, and the windiest month is July, when daily maximum gusts average 28 km/h.
July averages 11.9 hours of effective sunshine a day and 1.9 rain days across the month. July is also the driest month of the year, against May, the wettest, with 5.7 rain days; over the year as a whole it rains on about 51 days.
| Month | Max. air | Min. air | Sea | Wave | Max. gust | Rain days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 19.7 | 16.0 | 20.5 | 2.10 | 25 | 4.2 |
| February | 19.7 | 15.6 | 19.3 | 2.30 | 26 | 4.8 |
| March | 20.0 | 16.0 | 19.1 | 2.70 | 26 | 5.3 |
| April | 20.8 | 17.0 | 19.8 | 2.20 | 24 | 4.7 |
| May | 21.8 | 18.1 | 20.1 | 1.80 | 26 | 5.7 |
| June | 23.0 | 19.6 | 21.6 | 1.70 | 25 | 5.4 |
| July | 24.0 | 20.8 | 21.5 | 1.70 | 28 | 1.9 |
| August | 25.0 | 21.7 | 22.2 | 1.80 | 27 | 1.9 |
| September | 24.9 | 21.7 | 22.8 | 1.70 | 23 | 3.3 |
| October | 24.6 | 20.8 | 23.3 | 2.00 | 22 | 5.7 |
| November | 22.7 | 19.1 | 22.5 | 2.10 | 24 | 4.7 |
| December | 20.9 | 17.3 | 21.4 | 2.20 | 24 | 3.7 |
These are climatological means, not a forecast: they describe what has happened on average over the past decade, and any single day can depart a long way from them. The sea column holds the mean of the daily maximum sea-surface temperature, and the wave column the mean of the day's highest significant wave height. The beach index above, by contrast, is computed from today's forecast, combining air and sea temperature, waves, wind, cloud and rain — which is why it can contradict the table on any given day.
