WorldUnited States of America › Florida › Upham Beach

Upham Beach 24.4

#5545 of 5756 surf spots in the world · 🇺🇸 United States of America · Florida · near St. Petersburg

Wind is the enemy here, gentle enough to learn.

Warm waterBeginner
Upham Beach, United States of America
Photo: jesseasmith · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source · photo taken 2.2 km from the spot
Surf score24.4 /100
Surfable days44% of the year
Clean days0% groundswell + friendly wind
Groundswell0% period 11 s+
Typical size0.6 m 1.8 ft median
Water24°C a rash vest or 2 mm

Best time to surf Upham Beach

It rarely works. The nearest airport is TPA (34 km) and the nearest town is St. Petersburg (8 km).

MonthSurfableCleanSizeWaterSuit
Jan70%0%0.8 m17°C3/2
Feb48%0%0.6 m16°C4/3
Mar49%0%0.6 m21°C2mm
Apr58%0%0.6 m24°Cvest
May39%0%0.5 m28°Cboardies
Jun22%0%0.4 m30°Cboardies
Jul21%0%0.4 m31°Cboardies
Aug22%0%0.4 m31°Cboardies
Sep30%0%0.4 m29°Cboardies
Oct52%0%0.6 m26°Cboardies
Nov59%0%0.7 m22°C2mm
Dec55%0%0.7 m20°C2mm

What is under Upham Beach

Eight kilometres out along its swell window the sea floor drops to 71 m.

Depth 8 km out71 m
Depth 4 km out41 m

Measured, not estimated: NOAA ETOPO 2022 global relief at 15 arc-seconds, about 460 m per cell, sampled along this spot’s own swell window. At that scale the survey sees passes and channels; it cannot see a reef ledge, so nothing here is said about how the wave breaks.

Why 24.4

Seven parts, each normalised 0 to 1 and multiplied by its weight; the sum is scaled so the best spot in the world scores 100. Wave quality and what the spot does on its best days carry more than half of it, which is what separates this from a ranking of where the water is warm.

Wave quality 34.7%
2.5
Best days 22.4%
3.3
Clean days 18.4%
0.0
Consistency 10.2%
4.7
Season spread 4.1%
1.5
Water comfort 6.1%
5.0
Access 4.1%
4.1

The detail

Faces 224° with 53% open water around it. Friendly morning wind 72% of days. Mean peak period 4.5 s. Days over 3 m: 0%. On its best tenth of days it reaches 1.2 m, with a peak period of 6 s. Mellow days (0.4 to 1.2 m): 60%. Months that work: 5 of 12. Coordinates 27.736, -82.751 (OpenStreetMap).

What it costs to be here

Living here
€2,460/ month
typically €2,160 – €2,760
Rent, one bedroom€1,290
Groceries€517
Eating out€295
Getting around€172
Phone + internet€184
Renting by the month, cooking most days, local transport.
One month here
€4,800/ month
typically €4,220 – €5,370
Somewhere to stay€2,830
Eating out€1,010
Car, transfers, fuel€652
Data + extras€308
Short stays, eating out, a car or transfers.
49% cheaper if you live here instead of visiting

Airport and town on the doorstep, so the local estimate is 23% above the country average. Estimate: World Bank PPP price level for United States of America (2025, United States = 1.00) applied to a fixed surfer basket, then adjusted for how remote the spot is. Your own number moves with the season and how you live.

Our own project · Sumba, Indonesia
Own a cabin on a surf coast in Sumba

Sumba has eight spots in this ranking, the best of them inside the world top 50. A cabin is €11,500. The land it sits on is separate, from €6,500 (€9,950 oceanfront), on an 80-year lease that extends at the end. Water, septic and electricity are another €6,500, and furniture is on top, so a finished cabin lands around €28,000 plus the land, payable in instalments.

Eco Beach City is run by the same people as SurfRanking, so treat this as our own advert, not a recommendation. It is an off-plan property in Indonesia: take your own legal and financial advice before paying anything.

Spots nearby

Kastrosikia spot🇬🇷 Greece · score 32.7Norderney🇩🇪 Germany · score 32.9Ladies Mile🇨🇾 Cyprus · score 29.0Salalah🇴🇲 Oman · score 28.8
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