How often is the wind bad at Madeira airport?

Over 11 years of wind measured at Madeira airport (LPMA), 20.3% of days reached a rough band and 5.1% a severe one. March is the worst month at 29.9% of days and October the calmest at 11.6%. This measures wind at the airport, not diversions.

Landing conditions

How often is the wind at Madeira airport actually bad?

Every arrival into Funchal comes with the same rumour attached: that the aeroplane might not get in. This page answers the part of that which can be measured — 93,666 hourly wind observations from the airport itself, 11 years of them, sorted into the days that were routine and the days that were not.

20.3% of days rough 5.1% severe 29.9% in March, the worst month 11.6% in October, the calmest

Checked 10 Sept, 20:29 UTC · record runs 1 Jan 2016 to 10 Sept 2026

What this is, and what it is not

This is not a diversion rate. It is the wind measured on the ground at the airport. Madeira's go-arounds are driven as much by shear and turbulence rolling off the terrain on approach as by the number on the anemometer, and a surface reading at the threshold cannot see that. A day marked normal here has still produced a bumpy arrival.

No airline's crosswind limit for this airport is published anywhere we can cite, so this page does not pretend to one. The bands below are ours: they describe the wind, they do not predict what a crew will decide.

Right now

The most recent hourly observation in the record, 10 Sept, 20:00 UTC.

Normal

Wind: 360° at 7 kt
Crosswind: 4.9 kt
Favours: runway 05

One reading, taken at the time stamped above and no fresher than the check at the top of this page — and a day can have been far worse before the hour you are looking at. It is here because it is real, not because it forecasts anything. For the current picture, read the live METAR.

By month

The share of days in each calendar month whose worst hour reached the rough band. This is the number worth carrying into a booking decision, and it does not say what most Madeira advice says.

January 15.2% 5% severe 341 days
February 24.1% 9.6% severe 311 days
March 29.9% 11.4% severe 341 days
April 22.7% 6.1% severe 330 days
May 22.9% 4.1% severe 341 days
June 20.3% 3% severe 330 days
July 26.4% 5.9% severe 341 days
August 25.8% 5.3% severe 341 days
September 13.9% 1% severe 310 days
October 11.6% 2.6% severe 310 days
November 12% 1.7% severe 300 days
December 15.8% 4.5% severe 310 days

Each bar is scaled against the worst month, not against 100%, because the spread between October and March is the finding — drawn from zero they would all look the same. The darker segment is the severe share. Day counts are printed so you can see the denominator.

What that means for a booking

March is the worst month on record, with 29.9% of days reaching the rough band and 11.4% reaching severe — about one day in 9 with a genuinely difficult wind.
October is the calmest, at 11.6%. That is roughly 2.6× better than March, which is a bigger swing than anything the temperature charts will show you.
The high summer is not the calm season. Look at July and August against October and November: the northeasterly that builds over the summer puts more gusts across the runway than the autumn does, even though the autumn is wetter.
A tailwind statistic would be dishonest, so there isn't one. Madeira / Cristiano Ronaldo (FNC) has a single strip used in both directions, 05/23, so there is always an end into wind. Anyone quoting Madeira tailwind figures is quoting an arithmetic artefact.

The last 60 days

6 of the last 60 days reached the rough band or worse.

2026-07-13: Normal
2026-07-14: Normal
2026-07-15: Normal
2026-07-16: Normal
2026-07-17: Normal
2026-07-18: Normal
2026-07-19: Normal
2026-07-20: Normal
2026-07-21: Normal
2026-07-22: Normal
2026-07-23: Normal
2026-07-24: Normal
2026-07-25: Normal
2026-07-26: Rough
2026-07-27: Normal
2026-07-28: Normal
2026-07-29: Normal
2026-07-30: Normal
2026-07-31: Normal
2026-08-01: Normal
2026-08-02: Normal
2026-08-03: Normal
2026-08-04: Normal
2026-08-05: Normal
2026-08-06: Normal
2026-08-07: Normal
2026-08-08: Normal
2026-08-09: Normal
2026-08-10: Normal
2026-08-11: Normal
2026-08-12: Normal
2026-08-13: Normal
2026-08-14: Normal
2026-08-15: Normal
2026-08-16: Normal
2026-08-17: Normal
2026-08-18: Normal
2026-08-19: Normal
2026-08-20: Normal
2026-08-21: Normal
2026-08-22: Normal
2026-08-23: Normal
2026-08-24: Normal
2026-08-25: Normal
2026-08-26: Rough
2026-08-27: Normal
2026-08-28: Normal
2026-08-29: Normal
2026-08-30: Normal
2026-08-31: Normal
2026-09-01: Normal
2026-09-02: Normal
2026-09-03: Normal
2026-09-04: Normal
2026-09-05: Normal
2026-09-06: Rough
2026-09-07: Rough
2026-09-08: Rough
2026-09-09: Rough
2026-09-10: Normal

Oldest on the left. Hover or focus a mark for that day's figures.

The worst days on record

Ranked by crosswind rather than raw gust: a gale straight down 05/23 is uncomfortable, while a fraction of it across the runway is the problem.

Date	Peak gust	Crosswind	Sustained
21 Apr 2018	46 kt	41.7 kt	21 kt
2 Mar 2026	43 kt	35.2 kt	29 kt
13 Dec 2025	51 kt	34.6 kt	31 kt
3 Mar 2026	42 kt	34.4 kt	27 kt
15 Aug 2016	41 kt	34.4 kt	27 kt
14 Mar 2022	39 kt	34.4 kt	24 kt
5 Apr 2023	40 kt	32.8 kt	26 kt
15 Feb 2025	36 kt	32.6 kt	22 kt
25 Jun 2023	42 kt	31.9 kt	29 kt
26 Mar 2021	39 kt	31.9 kt	22 kt

How the bands are drawn

Band	Crosswind at the gust	Or peak gust
Normal	under 18 kt	under 30 kt
Rough	18 kt +	30 kt +
Severe	25 kt +	38 kt +

A day takes the worst hour it had, not its average — the two hours in the afternoon are the whole story, and a mean would bury them. Crosswind is computed against true bearings of 45° and 225°: the 05/23 designators are magnetic, the wind directions in the record are true, and the variation here is ~5°W.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure on this page is computed from the published surface observations for LPMA, held by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet — ASOS/METAR archive. Nothing here is typed by hand and the check time above is the real one.

What is missing is the diversion feed itself. The airport's own arrivals board sits behind managed bot protection, and reading it would mean building evasion — which this site will not do. The open flight-history archives that could answer it are licensed for non-commercial use only, and no feed at any price sells Madeira's diversion history retrospectively: it can only be recorded forward, a day at a time. That recording is built and waiting on a key. Until it runs, this page publishes the wind, which is honest and free, and stops short of the diversion count, which is neither.

Before you fly, check the actual forecast: IPMA · live LPMA METAR