Palikir month by month, at a glance
Hover each month for the summary. Click to pin it.
The usual question - which is the good month - gives a very thin answer here. Between the driest and the wettest month there are 236 millimetres of difference on an annual total of 5,202. In relative terms that is a small margin, and it does not change the nature of the trip.
01 Five thousand two hundred millimetres on the coast
The baseline figure is 5,202 millimetres a year in the Palikir area. For scale, that is more than double what Suva receives, eight times Canberra's total and four and a half times Montevideo's, none of which counts as a dry capital.
Spread across the months, the minimum is February with 279 millimetres and the maximum August with 515. No month falls below 279, so the word dry has no useful meaning here.
As in other maritime tropics, that water does not fall continuously. It arrives in heavy showers, often in the afternoon, with wide clear spells between. A rainy day here is not a lost day; it is a day on which you get wet several times.
Key moments at a glance
279 mm: the only one clearly below 350.
353 mm and an average high of 30.2 degrees.
515 mm, almost double February's figure.
504 mm within the May-to-October block.
02 The interior is another scale
The figure that really orders this island's climate is not the month but the altitude. The north-east trade wind arrives loaded with moisture, meets the interior massif and is forced to rise; as it rises it cools and unloads.
That mechanism, known in meteorology as orographic enhancement, multiplies rainfall over a few horizontal kilometres. From coast to interior the annual total can go from 5,200 millimetres to more than 8,000 with no change of season involved.
For the visitor this is very practical. If the interior closes in, the coast may be clear, and the other way round. Moving a few kilometres changes the weather more than waiting a week.
03 What does change month by month
All that said, there is an annual distribution worth using. January, February and March form the less humid block, with 377, 279 and 353 millimetres. That is the reasonable window if you can pick your dates.
From May to October the water settles above 460 millimetres a month, peaking in August. Those are also the months when the interior is least passable and the trails turn to mud.
November and December are transitional, with 421 and 392 millimetres. They work well if your calendar leaves no alternative, though without February's clear advantage.
04 Temperature and mugginess
As across this whole belt of the Pacific, the thermometer barely moves: average highs from 29.9 to 30.9 degrees and lows from 22.6 to 24.0. One degree of range at the top and under a degree and a half at the bottom.
What you do notice is humidity. With that much rain the air is saturated almost always, clothes do not dry on their own and how it feels comfortably exceeds what the thermometer says.
The lows from June to September, between 22.6 and 22.9 degrees, are the year's lowest and make the nights easier. It is a small difference, but in a climate this flat you notice it.
05 What to pack, and in short
Quick-drying clothes and several sets, because nothing dries fully; a thin rain shell permanently in your bag; footwear with grip on mud and wet rock; and dry bags for camera and documents. Nothing warm in any month.
In short: go between January and March, with February the best option; avoid May to October if you plan to walk in the interior; and do not measure the trip by the month but by the altitude you will be at each day.
