About
The Story Behind kiteCOMPASS
Built by a kite instructor who wanted numbers instead of guesses.
I am Max, a kite instructor from Germany, kiting since 2011 and teaching for six years. Every season students asked me the same questions: where can I kite in November, and when should I go to Dakhla? Forecast apps answer the next ten days. Travel blogs answer with adjectives. kiteCOMPASS answers with numbers.
What kiteCOMPASS does
We count kite days for 4,826 spots from nine years of hourly model wind, 2017 to 2025. A kite day has at least 3 hours of 12 to 35 kn model wind between 10:00 and 19:00 in daylight, with gusts up to 45 kn.
From that we show the best months, water temperature and wetsuit, and the odds that a trip of your length gets enough wind.
How we keep it honest
Hourly model wind from ECMWF IFS (9 km) or ERA5, one model per spot, via the Open-Meteo archive, 2017 to 2025. Water temperature from the Open-Meteo marine archive, 2023 to 2025. Nine years show the seasonal pattern and the usual year to year range. Every destination and spot page shows the data source, the years behind it and a confidence label.
Global weather models underestimate local thermal winds at lakes, gorges and some coasts. Where we have a documented local season that models miss, today at Torbole and Malcesine on Lake Garda, Silvaplana, Hood River, Tarifa and Valdevaqueros, we show that season with its sources instead of model numbers. Other lake and thermal spots show low confidence and no trip odds.
Get in touch
Spotted a wrong season or a missing spot? Write to [email protected] or find me on X.