Tulum Beach Conditions
Check real-time beach conditions before you book paradise
Sargassum season & 2026 conditions explained →
Watch the waves and beach conditions in real time. All links open in a new tab.
Both feeds are hosted by Windy.com and belong to their operators, not to us. Cameras occasionally go offline for maintenance or lose power in a storm — if a frame is blank, that is the camera, not the beach.
Two angles, roughly 30 km of coastline apart — and that gap is the point.
This is the one most people come for. It points at the sand on Tulum’s beach road (the zona hotelera), the same stretch that runs past the beach clubs and down toward Sian Ka’an. It is the closest thing to a live answer to “what does Tulum beach look like right now.” Watch it for three things: how much brown seaweed is banked at the waterline, how hard the wind is pushing the palms, and how much of the beach is left at high tide.
Akumal sits about 25–30 minutes north of Tulum by car, and it is a bay rather than an open shore — partly sheltered by reef. That matters. Sheltered bays along this coast tend to hold clearer water on days when the exposed beaches south of them are taking the brunt of an incoming sargassum raft. If the Tulum cam looks brown and the Akumal cam looks blue, you have just found your day trip.
The honest caveat: a webcam is one fixed frame of a coastline that runs for kilometres. Sargassum landfall is famously patchy — one beach club can be raked clean while the public beach 300 m away is knee-deep. Treat the cams as a strong hint, not a guarantee, and cross-check against the sargassum map below.
Tulum runs on UTC−5 year-round — Quintana Roo does not observe daylight saving time, so the clock never shifts. That makes the cams easy to plan around no matter where you are watching from.
Real-time updates to help plan your beach day.
Check today's seaweed conditions before heading to the beach.
View Map (New Tab)Sargassum is a free-floating brown seaweed that drifts across the Atlantic and washes ashore along the Mexican Caribbean. It is not pollution, and fresh sargassum is not dangerous to touch — though once it has been piled on hot sand for a day or two it decomposes and gives off a sulphur smell, which is what most complaints are really about. It is, however, the single biggest variable in whether a Tulum beach day is glorious or disappointing — so it is worth ten minutes of planning rather than a shrug.
Along this coast the season broadly runs May through October, with June, July and August usually the heaviest months. That pattern has been shifting, though: in recent years significant arrivals have shown up as early as March. The University of South Florida’s Sargassum Watch System, which tracks the Atlantic bloom by satellite, reported that in July 2026 the total quantity across most regions was second only to the 2025 record, and that beaching events continued around the Caribbean through that month. In short: 2026 is another heavy year, and planning around it is worth the effort.
What that does not mean is a brown beach for six months. Sargassum arrives in rafts pushed by wind and current. A heavy week is routinely followed by a clear one. This is exactly why a live camera beats a seasonal average: the season tells you the odds, the camera tells you the day.
This is the part most beach-cam pages leave out, and it is the part that actually saves a holiday. Tulum has an enormous amount to do that seaweed cannot touch:
For the full picture — which beaches are public, which clubs charge minimums, and which stretches handle seaweed best — read the Tulum beach guide.
The two Windy maps above are live: one shows rain radar and one shows wave height, both centred on Tulum. They are more useful than a generic forecast app because they show you the system — where the rain is, which way it is moving, and how big the swell is running.
Tulum has a dry season from roughly November through April and a wet season from roughly May through October. Wet season does not mean washed out. The classic pattern is a hot, bright morning, a heavy downpour in the late afternoon, and a clear evening. If the radar shows a band of green sliding in from the southwest around 16:00, that is the normal rhythm, not a ruined day.
The Atlantic hurricane season officially runs 1 June to 30 November. Direct hits on Tulum are uncommon in any given year, but if you are travelling inside that window it is worth watching the radar map and the official forecasts rather than relying on a seven-day app.
The wave overlay matters for two reasons beyond surfing. Bigger swell stirs sediment, so water clarity drops even with no seaweed present — and onshore swell is what delivers sargassum rafts onto the sand in the first place. A calm wave map plus an offshore breeze is the combination you want to see the night before a beach day.
Quintana Roo sits on UTC−5 all year and does not change for daylight saving. From spring through autumn that puts Tulum an hour behind US Eastern time; in winter the two line up. Useful when you are checking a camera from another country and trying to work out whether that empty beach means “quiet” or “6 a.m.”
Yes. The Tulum East — Nômade camera at the top of this page points directly at the sand on Tulum’s beach road and streams during daylight hours. It is hosted by Windy.com. We also embed a second camera at Akumal Bay, about 25–30 minutes north, so you can compare an exposed beach against a sheltered one.
Do three things in this order: watch the live cams between 10:00 and 12:00 local time, after the morning cleanup; open the beach-by-beach sargassum map linked above to see whether the conditions are local or coast-wide; and check the wind direction on the Windy map. Onshore easterly wind brings seaweed in, offshore westerly wind holds it out.
Broadly May through October, heaviest in June, July and August, though arrivals as early as March have become more common. It comes in rafts rather than continuously, so a heavy week is often followed by a clear one.
Almost always the camera, not the beach. These feeds belong to their operators and go offline for maintenance, power cuts and storms. Most have no meaningful night vision, so a black frame after sunset is expected. Try again in the morning.
Often yes, though it is not pleasant when the seaweed is thick at the waterline. Beach clubs generally rake their frontage each morning and some run offshore barriers, so their stretches stay clearer than unmanaged public beach. Reef-sheltered bays north of Tulum, including Akumal, frequently stay swimmable when the open coast does not. And cenotes are unaffected entirely.
UTC−5, year-round. Quintana Roo does not observe daylight saving time, so local time never shifts.
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