Sardinia is one of the windiest islands in the Mediterranean. Four dominant winds — maestrale (north-west), scirocco (south-east), ponente (west) and grecale (north-east) — shape the marine climate and determine which beaches are sheltered each day.
The live status block at the top of the /en/wind page shows the current wind over the island with speed in km/h and direction, updated every 30 minutes from Open-Meteo.
The four dominant winds of Sardinia are the maestrale (from the north-west), the scirocco (from the south-east), the ponente (from the west) and the grecale (from the north-east).
The north-west wind is called maestrale (in Italian) or tramontana/tramuntana in some areas of Sardinia. In French it is known as mistral. It blows from 315°.
The maestrale blows year-round, but is most frequent and intense in autumn and winter. In summer it can appear suddenly even in the hottest weeks.
In summer the most common wind is the afternoon ponente breeze (15-30 km/h) and the moderate maestrale (20-40 km/h). Violent storms are rare.
Beaches sheltered from the maestrale are mainly on the east coast (Gulf of Orosei, Costa Rei, Villasimius) where the whole island acts as a shield.
The warm wind is the scirocco, which arrives from the south-east bringing warm, humid air from the Sahara, sometimes laden with sand.
The YepSea /en/wind page includes a live Windy.com map centred on Sardinia showing direction, speed and gusts in real time.
The windiest period is autumn-winter (October-February), when the maestrale and grecale can blow for days with gusts of 60-100 km/h.
In summer the scirocco brings humid heat but rarely rain. In autumn and spring it can be associated with fronts that dump heavy rain, especially in mountainous areas.