Tool
Teide summit: wind and cold, hour by hour
Two things decide whether a trip to the top is worth it: whether the cable car is running, and whether you brought a coat. Both are wind and temperature questions, and both have an answer in the record.
Pick a month and a gust threshold
The cable car operator does not publish a fixed wind limit, so this shows bands rather than a yes/no. Suspensions are common once gusts are in the 50–70 km/h range.
| Local time | Chance of gusts over 50 km/h | Typical gust | Typical temp | Cold end (1 day in 10) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 31% | 43 km/h | -6.5 °C | -9.7 °C |
| 01:00 | 30% | 43 km/h | -6.5 °C | -9.8 °C |
| 02:00 | 32% | 43 km/h | -6.8 °C | -10.2 °C |
| 03:00 | 32% | 42 km/h | -7.1 °C | -10.4 °C |
| 04:00 | 29% | 42 km/h | -7.1 °C | -10.6 °C |
| 05:00 | 29% | 41 km/h | -7.2 °C | -10.9 °C |
| 06:00 | 30% | 41 km/h | -7.5 °C | -11.1 °C |
| 07:00 | 29% | 41 km/h | -7.7 °C | -11.1 °C |
| 08:00 | 29% | 40 km/h | -7.8 °C | -11.0 °C |
| 09:00 | 27% | 40 km/h | -7.7 °C | -11.1 °C |
| 10:00 | 27% | 40 km/h | -6.0 °C | -9.1 °C |
| 11:00 | 28% | 41 km/h | -2.5 °C | -6.5 °C |
| 12:00 | 31% | 42 km/h | -1.1 °C | -5.5 °C |
| 13:00 | 30% | 42 km/h | -0.5 °C | -4.7 °C |
| 14:00 | 33% | 43 km/h | 0.1 °C | -4.4 °C |
| 15:00 | 30% | 42 km/h | 0.1 °C | -4.2 °C |
| 16:00 | 29% | 42 km/h | -0.2 °C | -4.5 °C |
| 17:00 | 29% | 42 km/h | -0.9 °C | -5.0 °C |
| 18:00 | 29% | 42 km/h | -1.9 °C | -5.9 °C |
| 19:00 | 29% | 42 km/h | -3.3 °C | -7.2 °C |
| 20:00 | 29% | 43 km/h | -5.0 °C | -8.4 °C |
| 21:00 | 32% | 43 km/h | -5.4 °C | -8.7 °C |
| 22:00 | 33% | 42 km/h | -5.9 °C | -9.0 °C |
| 23:00 | 33% | 43 km/h | -6.3 °C | -9.4 °C |
“Typical” is the median across the 10 years; the cold end is the 10th percentile — one hour in ten is at least that cold. Times are local Canary time.
The year at a glance
| Month | Gusts over 50 km/h | Gusts over 70 km/h | Median temp | Cold end | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 30% | 9% | -4.5 °C | -9.5 °C | 10 |
| February | 30% | 10% | -4.2 °C | -9.7 °C | 10 |
| March | 30% | 7% | -3.1 °C | -8.3 °C | 10 |
| April | 25% | 5% | -1.3 °C | -6.6 °C | 10 |
| May | 19% | 6% | 1.0 °C | -4.9 °C | 10 |
| June | 22% | 8% | 4.1 °C | -1.7 °C | 10 |
| July | 25% | 4% | 10.4 °C | 3.0 °C | 10 |
| August | 20% | 4% | 10.5 °C | 3.2 °C | 10 |
| September | 29% | 10% | 5.3 °C | -0.4 °C | 10 |
| October | 26% | 10% | 2.7 °C | -2.6 °C | 10 |
| November | 31% | 8% | -1.2 °C | -5.8 °C | 10 |
| December | 30% | 8% | -3.7 °C | -8.1 °C | 10 |
What the record says
The single most useful number here is the temperature one, because it is the one people get wrong. In January, the median temperature at the top station is-4.5 °C, and one hour in ten is at or below-9.5 °C — before any wind chill. People step off the cable car in shorts every single day of the year. The mountain is 3,555 m up and it does not care that the beach you left an hour ago was at 22 °C.
On wind, the seasonal pattern is real but less dramatic than the forums suggest. November is the windiest month, with gusts over 50 km/h in31% of hours; May is the calmest, at19%. So even in the best month you are not looking at a guarantee, and even in the worst month most hours are fine. The practical reading: a summer visit is roughly a one-in-five proposition for strong gusts, a winter visit closer to one in three, and in both cases the hour of day matters as much as the month — which is what the table above is for.
Why there is no “it closes at X km/h” line here
Because the operator does not publish one, and inventing a threshold would make this page look more useful than it is. Cable car suspensions depend on gust direction and on the state of the two cabins, not on a single number a website can check. What the data can honestly tell you is the chance of the conditions that tend to cause suspensions, which is what the bands do.
How to use this
Pick your month, look at the shape of the day rather than a single hour, and book the part of the day where the bar is shortest. Then, the day before, check the actual forecast and the operator's own status page — a ten-year record tells you what is likely, never what will happen on Thursday.
Note on the model: these are hourly values from a reanalysis, downscaled to 3,555 m, not readings from a summit anemometer. Reanalyses smooth out the sharpest peaks, so if anything the real frequency of extreme gusts is a little higher than shown here, not lower.