Whether you’re a surfer visiting Panama or live there year-round, the best Playa Venao surf season is the period between October and April. October and November are the last months of the rainy season and from December to April the dry season.
But what makes this the best time to surf? And what are the best solutions to check the forecast to ensure you go out on the water on the right day? Keep reading our guide to find out.
What’s the Best Playa Venao Surf Season?
The best time of the year to surf in Playa Venao (which is a bay and beach located on the Azuero Peninsula) is the dry season which runs from around December to April. This is because it offers clear skies, relatively gentle winds, and consistent surfs with fewer storms.
While the Playa Venao surf in August is still beautiful, the dry season provides the most surfable waves for beginner and intermediate surfers. It’s also great for those looking to surf casually without having to deal with the highest waves and the most wind. That being said, the area is known for great year-round surfing, as well.
If you’re an advanced surfer who wants the biggest waves and the most challenging experience, that’ll generally be during the rainy season, which falls between May and November.
Unfortunately, if you’re still learning or aren’t comfortable with large waves, you could end up being sidelined on many days during the rainy season.
What’s the Best Way to See the Playa Venao Weather Forecast?
While knowing the right Playa Venao surf season is important, the surfing experience can vary widely from day to day, as well. Because of this, it’s crucial that you check out the weather before you get on the water.
If you don’t plan ahead by checking the Playa Venao surf forecast, you could end up wasting a lot of time and/or ending up with a subpar surfing day.
While there are dozens of different options for keeping up with weather forecasts, they’re not all created equally. Here are a few of our favorite options for checking the surf forecast in Playa Venao.
Our Favorite: Surfline
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Our favorite option for forecasting the best Playa Venao surf season is Surfline. All you need to do is search for Playa Venao or any other preferred surfing spot and it instantly shows you the current surfing conditions, including the wave height, wind, temperature, and tide.
It also has cams for many surf spots, so you can see exactly how the waves are looking.
When you scroll down, you see a detailed Playa Venao surf report and forecast. It goes over the wave height, primary swell, secondary swell, wind speed and direction, temperature, pressure, and forecast probability.
However, it only shows this data for a few days in advance. If you want up to 16 days of data, you’ll need a Premium account.
While the design is a little plain and barebones compared to other options, it provides all the information you need on a single page. Some people might find the list of numbers confusing to follow or make sense of, but once you get used to the design of the data, it’s an easy online tool for quickly scouting the surf forecast over the next few days.
Best Design: Windy
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If you want a surf-specific weather forecasting tool with a beautiful design, Windy might be right for you. It has a stunning interface that features a colorful map that shows the direction and speeds of the wind in your chosen location.
The bottom of the screen shows you the current conditions, as well as forecasts for the next few days. It includes the temperature, precipitation, pressure, wind, and wind direction.
Off to the side, you’ll also see a menu with several options including wind, temperature, waves, clouds, rain and thunder, and others. Each provides a completely unique look to the map on your screen and shows what the weather looks like through gorgeous visuals.
The platform also lets you decide which weather model you’d like the tool to use, including the Global Forecast System (GFS), European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and Icosahedral Nonhydrostatic (ICON).
But while the design is beautiful and full of details, the abundance of data on-screen at any time is overwhelming to some users.
Most User-Friendly: AccuWeather
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Another great option, especially if you value user-friendliness, is AccuWeather. After searching for your area, the app shows you the current weather, minute-by-minute precipitation updates, wind, and the unique RealFeel, which is what it actually feels like when you’re outside.
While the design is user-friendly, it still includes plenty of details and data like wind speed, rain amount and probability, cloud cover, UV index, max wind gusts, sunrise and sunset, and others.
The bottom of the app easily lets you move from today’s weather to an hourly breakdown, to a forecast for the next few weeks. There’s also a Radar and Maps tab that gives you a visual guide to the weather over the next few hours.
Unfortunately, the surf-specific details lag behind other options as this is a general weather app. Also, while the app performs well, there are frequent pop-up ads you’re forced to watch, and some features are only available if you pay.
We hope our guide has been able to help you learn more about the best Playa Venao surf season and help you choose the best weather forecasting solution.
