Været i Tobago (Scarborough) i mai

Regulars date the rainy season here from June, which makes May the last of the dry half and a common worry for people booking mid-month. Their description of what follows is the useful part: squalls of twenty or thirty minutes with sun behind them, cloud building through the day and rain in the afternoon, rather than a northern kind of wet day. Our May still reads dry in total, 59.2mm, though it falls across 12.8 days. Heat is the constant at 31.4C reading as 34C over 25.3C nights, with a 27.9C sea and a 30.9 kph trade wind. Rough water later in the year cancels boat trips; in May it mostly just cools the beach. The record: 11.4 hours of sun and AQI 53.

Regulars are consistent that rain here typically arrives as a short, sharp shower that clears quickly rather than settling in for a full day, and that a whole vacation of all-day rain would be genuinely unusual even though this sits at the tail end of the wet season. Our row backs the real wetness behind that framing, 106mm of rain across a striking 18.8 days, alongside warm, humid conditions, 30.8C reading as a hot 33C at 79 percent humidity, over 24.1C nights, and a real 30.4 kph wind. Regulars flag the sea as noticeably choppier this time of year, not ideal for snorkeling even on an otherwise sunny day. One regular's caution is worth keeping in mind broadly: historical patterns aren't as reliable a guide as they used to be, with rain showing up in dry season and sun in wet season more often lately. The sea holds a warm 28.2C. The record: 10 hours of sun and one of the cleanest air readings in this project, AQI 39.

January sits inside the December-to-May dry season and regulars describe it as warm, sunny and dry - with wind as the caveat, since this is when the trades blow hardest and nobody here treats that as unusual. Our row makes the point numerically: 30.6 kph, which is a stiff breeze as a monthly average, and 30.4C reading as 33C without it feeling worse. Rain looks frequent at 14.3 days but totals only 47.1mm, about three millimetres each - passing showers rather than weather. The sea is 26.9C and generally calms after Christmas, though the boards will not promise it. The record: humidity 77 percent, 10.5 hours of sun and AQI 49.

April is the peak of Tobago's dry season - December to May, with April usually the driest of them - and the forum's caution is the standing tropical one: this is a rainforest island and rain can arrive at any time. The sea is the other variable, described as hit or miss at this time of year, though it generally calms down after Christmas. On crowds, March is the month regulars name for missing the masses, and the date to check against is the Tobago Jazz Festival in the last week of April, which takes the accommodation with it. Our row shows the trade wind at 30 kph. The record: 31.1C days that feel like 34C, 24.4C nights, 8.7 precipitation days carrying 34mm and a 27.2C sea.

Tobago-forum regulars put February squarely in the dry season: fairly nice days with the odd brief shower is the standing description, and a light jacket is called unnecessary unless you are staying up in the hills. The caveat several posters add is that showers now turn up in the dry months too, enough that one trip felt like wet season. The other February factor is Trinidad's Carnival - an expensive week to fly and book if you are not going for it, though Tobago moved its own carnival to October, so the island itself is quieter than the crossing suggests. The record backs the forum: 30.4C days, 23.4C nights, 9.5 precipitation days but only 29.4mm between them - showers, not rain days - with 10.7 hours of sun, a 26.6C sea and a steady 33 kph trade wind. AQI 56.