Været i Lanzarote (Puerto del Carmen) i februar

Regulars are specific that where you base yourself matters more than the month itself for wind exposure - Playa Blanca stays genuinely sheltered on the south coast behind mountains that block the trade winds, while Costa Teguise catches the breeze directly and can feel noticeably cooler and cloudier at the same time. Our row backs that warm, genuinely dry read, 24.9C over 17.1C nights, with rain essentially absent, 1.6mm across half a day, and a real 30.7 kph wind reflecting those exposed-coast totals. Regulars are consistent southern resorts generally deliver the more reliable holiday weather this month, Puerto del Carmen specifically named as calmer than the windier east coast spots. The sea sits at a comfortably swimmable 21C. The record: humidity 75 percent, 11.9 hours of sun and AQI 50.

Regulars call October the island's best month, and our columns explain the feeling better than the temperature does. It is not the hottest - 27.4C here against August's 28.3C - but the wind falls to 26.2 kph, the lowest of this island's year, on a coast where wind is the permanent complaint. The sea is 24C, level with August's warmest. Rain is almost nothing, 12.8mm across 2.1 days, and their long experience matches that: odd days of showers, rarely a whole week of them. Nights hold 19.2C. The record: humidity 78 percent, 10.2 hours of sun and AQI 46.

Regulars rate September the best of the Lanzarote year - high twenties to low thirties, and a wind they describe as variable but welcome, a breeze that takes the edge off rather than a nuisance. Our row measures it at 29.3 kph against 28.1C, with rain effectively absent at 6.5mm across 0.6 days. The one thing they warn about is not seasonal but episodic: a calima, an easterly carrying Saharan dust and very hot air, which hits the eastern islands a few times a year, lasts a day or several, and can put ten degrees on top of whatever the forecast said. No month is safe from it and no average shows it. The record: 20.4C nights, humidity 78 percent, 11 hours of sun and a 23.8C sea.

Lanzarote regulars quantify the thing our row only measures: August wind runs some 40 to 50 percent above the winter figure, and ours is 33.3 kph. Their ranking of the three main resorts is the useful part - of the three main ones, Playa Blanca is the most sheltered and Costa Teguise the most exposed, sitting where the prevailing north-easterly trades hit hardest. Most of them treat the wind as the reason August is bearable rather than a fault, though it can get strong in the evenings and early mornings. Rain does not exist at 0.3mm across 0.2 precipitation days. Days sit at 28.3C over 21.2C nights with a 24C sea. The record: humidity 81 percent, 11.6 hours of sun and AQI 53.