Meteo Ko Lipe (Koh Lipe) in aprile

April is where the Andaman year changes: the south-west monsoon runs May to October, and by late April the rains are just arriving. Our row nearly triples March's rainfall to 153.8mm across 22.7 precipitation days. Regulars describe the pattern rather than the total - thunder showers mostly in the late afternoon and evening, plenty of sunshine in between, and very rarely a full day of rain - so April still functions. Practically, the Langkawi ferries run to the 31st of May and most resorts and Walking Street shops stay open, so nothing shuts yet. Heat is the other cost: 29.6C over a 26.8C night reads as 36C and 31C, and the sea is 30.6C, the warmest in this collection. The record: humidity 80 percent, 10.4 hours of sun and AQI 50.

Regulars are honest experiences here vary even within the same peak window, one visitor calling the weather absolutely perfect from December 11th onward aside from a couple of rainy morning hours, another arriving just two days later reporting mostly cloudy skies with barely four hours of real sun the whole stay. Our row backs that hot, genuinely wet read, 28.6C reading as a hot 33C, over 25.9C nights feeling 28C, with a substantial 150.8mm of rain across 14.7 days and a real 25.8 kph wind. Regulars are consistent the best weather window is generally understood to run from mid-December through the end of February, peak season lining up with that same stretch. The sea sits at a bath-warm 29C. The record: 9.2 hours of sun, humidity 78 percent and AQI 40.

Regulars describe genuinely bimodal outcomes here - a whole sunny week is possible, so is a week of mixed weather, but an entire week of solid rain is very unusual even though this sits inside the technical monsoon season. Our row backs the wet reality of that season regardless, a striking 150mm of rain across 19.2 days, alongside real heat, 29.1C reading as a hot 35C at 80 percent humidity, over 26.7C nights. Regulars are candid this isn't the ideal month for weather specifically - seas can run rough enough to affect inter-island ferries and boat trips - but note accommodation runs noticeably cheaper as a direct trade-off. The sea holds a warm 30.8C. The record: 9.7 hours of sun, a 17.6 kph wind and AQI 44.

March closes the good run on Ko Lipe - regulars say the weather is reliable from early January to the end of March, normally sunny with a calm sea and excellent snorkelling, and they name January and March as the two best months. Late March is also the tail of high season: still busy, ferries plentiful, and the beaches lined almost end to end with longtail boats. Their end-of-March figures of 33C by day and 26C at night sit above our 29.9C monthly average because the month warms as it goes; the 26.7C night reading as 30C is the part people underestimate. With the sea at 29.6C there is nothing cool to get into. April and May are quieter. The record: 55.4mm across 11.8 precipitation days, humidity 74 percent, 10.8 hours of sun and a 21.7 kph wind.

February sits well inside Ko Lipe's high season, which runs November to early May - the dry stretch, clear of the monsoon that makes the crossing impossible later in the year. Snorkelling trips run whenever the water is not too rough, and Sunrise Beach gets named for snorkelling straight off the sand. The caveat regulars raise is space rather than weather: peak runs from 15 December to the end of February, and the island is small enough that people describe too many visitors and nowhere to get away from them. February is the better end of that peak rather than an escape from it. The record: 29.9C days that feel like 35C, 26.2C nights, 5.8 precipitation days carrying 32.9mm, 10.7 hours of sun, a 29.3C sea and a 27 kph breeze.