Kampot weather in August

Sihanoukville forum regulars describe August as genuine monsoon season, with rain that can hit overnight, early morning or mid-afternoon and, when it does, comes down hard for roughly an hour before clearing. One traveler who spent two weeks there in August said it only rained a handful of times, always torrential but brief, and had more sunny days than wet ones overall. The bigger risk isn't the rain itself but rougher seas - a few posters mentioned island boat trips to Koh Rong getting cancelled on choppy days, so it's worth building a spare day into any island-hopping plan.

Kampot's forum, including a poster with multiple years of July/August visits, describes a consistent pattern: rain on roughly three of every four days, but concentrated as an intense downpour for an hour or two in the late afternoon or overnight, leaving mornings and early afternoons generally clear for getting out and about. One visitor did hit a genuinely wetter-than-usual stretch in late July, but the forum consensus was that these short, sharp squalls are normal for the season and not a reason to skip Kampot or nearby Kep.

Forum posters name December-January as the best weather stretch of the year here - dry, cool mornings, blue skies and a light breeze, with humidity noticeably lower than the rest of the year. The clear trade-off: this is also peak tourist season, so posters note higher prices and more crowds than the shoulder months. For Kampot specifically, posters describe November-December as particularly gorgeous - dry and comfortably low-humidity, though occasionally dusty given the dry conditions. Posters do flag that 'cool' is relative here - what feels cool to a Cambodian local wearing a light jacket may still feel warm to a visitor from a genuinely cold climate, so temperature expectations should be calibrated accordingly.