Weather Forecast in Langkawi and Lipe

When I first came to Langkawi ten years ago it was important for my business to establish what rainfall I could expect in any given month. When I asked the question of locals "When does the rainy season start?" some would say May and others July while others would say October is the rainy season. Confused I decided to write down the weather I experienced every day to make sure I knew the following year what to properly expect. Why not just go on the internet and look up millimetres of rain to expect in the month? Well as I provide tourism in the outdoors I needed to know how long a day it would rain, not a monthly rainfall figure. After all it could drizzle all day, or it could dump it all in a half an hour. These are the results and they represent rainfall per 24 hours. This means that if it rains for 3 hours, but those three hours happened between 2am and 5am most people wouldn't worry too much. So if it rained at night I would just look at the average the week before during the day and assume this is how long it rained for at night. Langkawi is pretty cyclical like that.

January Nil
February Nil
March Nil
April Nil
May 20 Mins
June 45 mins
July 1 hour 30 mins
August 3 hours
September 3 hours
October 2 hours
November 45 mins
December 20 mins

It only ever rained all day a few times a year.

This looks very straight forward but it unfortunately isn't. Langkawi is big enough to have its own microclimate created by the mountains. Gunung Raya mountain in the middle seems to attract the most rain. The Berjaya and cable car area can also be deluged with rain and Kuah town won't get any. In addition it can start to rain on the West Coast and the rain can move to the East coast. The rain may do this over a 30 minute period before clearing first on the West and then the East as it sweeps across the island. A tourist getting into a transfer vehicle to go on a tour may experience an hour of rain although it rained only a half an hour at his hotel and at his destination.

Finally in Langkawi we have something called the Sumartras. This is a strong squall coming from Indonesia. It usually lasts about 30 minutes and just when you start to think that the roof will blow off it suddenly stops. You get these in May and June at the changing of the monsoon. If there are going to be storms these are more likely to happen in October as the monsoon turns back to the dry season.

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