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Muscat's forum rates January as the best month of the year — warm and sunny by day, shorts-and-t-shirt weather, but cooling enough after sunset that a sweater is standard advice for the evening. Regulars note the days are noticeably short this time of year, with sunset around 5:45pm.

February is the month the Muscat forum recommends without a caveat: warm sunny days, balmy evenings made for eating outside, and temperatures posters put at 23 to 26C by day and 16 to 19C at night - easy walking, easy sitting outdoors. The good stretch runs end of September to April, and the desert storms people ask about come later, from about late March into summer. The itinerary advice attached is to get out of the city: Wadi Shab and Wadi Tiwi on the roughly 200km loop down towards Sur, which February weather suits as well as it suits the corniche. The record: 26.3C days, 18.6C nights, 1.6 precipitation days, humidity near 62 percent, 10.3 hours of sun, a 23.6C sea, AQI 81.

March is the end of the good run, which regulars put at late September to April with November to early March as its best part. They report the month arriving either way: sunny and 30C, or hazy and humid at 35 to 40C, sometimes with fog or cloud. Even at the top of that it stays workable - fine for a pool or a beach, and comfortable enough to sightsee and to eat outside after dark. Our row sits at the mild end, 29.6C over 21.5C at 56 percent humidity with a 25.5C sea, and rain is negligible at 12.7mm across 2.2 days. The figure nobody on the board raises is AQI 82. The record: 10.7 hours of sun and a 17.2 kph wind.

Regulars are consistent this month sits right at the edge of the comfortable season here, decent weather generally holding from late September through April before the real heat sets in, with humidity already climbing and some days reaching well into the high 30s. Our row backs that hot, genuinely dry read, 34.3C reading as a hot 37C, over 25.4C nights, with rain minimal at 11.6mm across just 1.6 days and humidity at 47 percent. Regulars are specific that heading into the mountains or sticking close to the coast offers a genuinely drier version of the heat compared with being inland, worth factoring into where to base a trip this late in the season. The sea sits at a warm 27.2C, comfortably swimmable. The record: 11.6 hours of sun, a 17.7 kph wind and AQI 94.

Forum posters don't mince words about July: normal temperatures run 40-47C, dropping only into the mid-30s C overnight, and posters call it dangerously and uncomfortably hot rather than just warm. The city's surrounding mountains make it worse, not better - they absorb heat during the day and radiate it back out at night, so even shaded coastal hotels stay hot and humid around the clock. The consistent advice for anyone visiting anyway: do excursions as early as possible, avoid midday sun entirely, hydrate constantly, and watch for heat-stress symptoms especially in kids - or head inland to Nizwa and the Jebel Shams/Jebel Al Akhbar mountains, which posters describe as noticeably cooler than the city.

November is the month the board recommends without qualification - wall-to-wall sun and a light sea breeze, the start of a window running through to February, after a summer they say plainly must be avoided. Their figures run 22 to 32C, with late November nearer 28C by day; our row averages 30.3C over 21.6C at 58.7 percent humidity, dry enough that 30C reads as 31C rather than worse. Rain is a rounding error, 4.5mm across 0.2 days. The sea is the detail worth carrying: 28.7C, warmer than the night air, which is why the boat trips and the snorkelling start again now. The record: 10 hours of sun, a 14.9 kph wind and AQI 70.

December is the month Oman regulars name as the best of the year, and their figures are almost exactly ours: 27C by day and 18C at night against our row's 26.8C and 18.1C, with full sun and effectively no rain - 8.2mm across 1.1 days. The sea is the part that surprises people. It sits around 23 to 26C, which they compare to the Mediterranean in July, and snorkelling and swimming are comfortable throughout. The one thing to pack against is the evening: a sea breeze comes up after dark and a wrap, a long-sleeved shirt or a light jacket earns its place, especially if you are eating outside. The record: humidity 63 percent, 9.8 hours of sun, a 26.4C sea and AQI 71.