Gran Canaria live webcams

Winter sun on the same clock as home

Gran Canaria is the island many people in the UK and Ireland think of first when they want sunshine between October and April, and it has one advantage over mainland Spain: the Canaries keep the same time as London and Dublin all year. The hour on the cameras is the hour at home, which makes it easy to check the weather over breakfast before a holiday, or to see what you are missing after it.

The south and south-west

Most of the cameras are on the south coast, where the resorts are and where the sunshine is most reliable. Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés and San Agustín run into one another along a single stretch of shore, from the lighthouse and the dunes to the smaller, darker beaches in the north-east. Further west, the coast turns rockier: Arguineguín is a fishing town with a seafront, and Puerto Rico fills a steep valley around a beach and two harbours. Round on the south-east coast, Pozo Izquierdo is a different kind of place: a windsurfing village with no resort at all, where the camera shows how hard the trade wind is blowing across the bay. Some cameras are live streams, run by hotels, apartment owners and local businesses; others are time-lapses that sum up the last 24 hours.

Las Palmas and the north-west

The north of the island is greener and cloudier, and its main beach is a city beach: Las Canteras, in the capital, sheltered by a natural reef and busy all year with people who live there. Further west, Agaete's harbour of Puerto de las Nieves sits under some of the highest cliffs on the island; its live cameras show whether the north is clear before a day trip, and the ferries to Tenerife leave from its quay.

When to watch

The south faces the morning sun, so the cameras there are at their best from breakfast time until mid-afternoon; Las Canteras and Agaete face west, towards the sunset. The north-east trade wind blows most days, strongest in summer, and shows on the cameras as white water and blowing sand.