Punta Panico • Statistics for January

January: The Summer Sweet Spot

January sits inside Punta Panico's most user-friendly window of the year, even though the swell direction is far from ideal. The wave rose is dominated by SW (48%) and WSW (23%) energy, with a healthy 20% from the SSW; the average swell height checks in at 5ft (1.5m) with a powerful 14-second period. The catch is that this open-ocean swell is arriving from the south-west rather than from the N/NW window this northwest-facing beach is built to absorb, so expect considerable shadowing and a lot less size in the water than the buoy data suggests. The wind story is much better: S (34%), SSW (27%), SW (17%) and WSW (11%) combine for offshore flow most of the time, generally in the 10-20kph range, and the 'ideal wind' score sits at a solid 59%. With air temperatures around 24.4°C, water at 22.9°C and just 0.75mm/day of rain, January delivers clean, warm, mostly 3-5ft surf, but the lack of true north in the swell keeps the magic at a distance.