What the wind does in Jericoacoara
Jericoacoara — Jeri to anyone who has been — sits inside a national park on Brazil's northeastern coast, in the state of Ceará. A small village of sand streets, no cars, and palm-thatched buildings opens onto an arc of sandy beach and the brown-blue water of the equatorial South Atlantic. The wind is the entire point. From August through January the trade wind blows almost without pause, and the surrounding terrain — dunes, lagoons, mangroves, and long open beach — turns into one of the planet's largest flat-water playgrounds.
The wind that powers Jeri is the Alísios, the equatorial trade wind, pushed by the South Atlantic anticyclone and reinforced by daily thermals as the inland desert heats up. The wind direction is east-northeast — side-onshore at most Jeri beaches and lagoons. Strengths of 18 to 25 knots are the daily norm in the heart of the season (September through November); afternoons sometimes push past 30 knots when the thermal stacks on top of the trade. Wind on roughly 28 days out of every 30 is the typical August-to-December experience.
The dry season (August through January) is the wind season. The wet season (February through July) is its mirror image — wind drops sharply, rain becomes common, many businesses close, and a Jeri visit in those months turns into a quiet beach holiday rather than a kite trip. The transition happens fast: by mid-July the wind is climbing back, by early February it is fading.