Погода: Мале, январь

Regulars are clear this sits inside the dry season, past the unsettled wet-to-dry transition that wraps up in December, but is far from a calm month - genuinely windy, especially around the central atolls near Male, sometimes enough to churn up choppy seas and reduce underwater visibility. Our row backs a warm, still fairly wet read for a nominal dry-season month, 31C over 26.1C nights, with 135.9mm of rain across 11.4 days and a real 23.4 kph wind. Regulars note wind levels vary meaningfully by atoll, with the central atolls and the first half of February typically windier than other parts of the archipelago. The sea holds a warm 27.8C regardless. The record: humidity 78 percent, 10.2 hours of sun and AQI 62.

Regulars are specific that the southwest monsoon driving this month's rain hits the southern atolls noticeably harder than the northern ones, southern islands averaging roughly 2,300mm of rain a year against about 1,800mm in the north - a real factor when picking which atoll to book. Our row backs that hot, genuinely wet read, 31.4C reading as a hot 36C, over 26.5C nights, with a substantial 148mm of rain across 16.8 days and humidity at 80 percent. Regulars are consistent rain here tends to arrive in short, intense bursts rather than all-day downpours, often concentrated overnight, and that this counts among the cheapest months to visit precisely because of the rainy reputation. The sea sits at a bath-warm 29.7C regardless of atoll. The record: 10 hours of sun, a 22.7 kph wind and one of the cleanest air readings in this project, AQI 25.

Maldives-forum threads on typical April weather describe a month balanced right on the seasonal hinge: certainly hot and humid at least part of the time, with some rain likely at some point, since the end of April marks the changeover from the dry monsoon to the wet one - a shift nobody can predict the exact timing of, though it more often lands later in April or slips into May. Experiences reported directly split along that line: some visitors get hot, clear days with great visibility straight through mid-April, others get predominantly sunny stretches with occasional showers that never last long. The consistent advice is that early April runs more reliable than late April. The record: 32.4C days feeling like a sticky 39C, 27.3C nights, 97mm across 14.6 days, a 30.9C sea, 79 percent humidity and 11 hours of sun - already leaning toward the wetter half of the changeover.

June sits inside the Maldives' south-west monsoon, which runs from about May to November and is the wetter and windier of the two. The forum's arithmetic is more useful than the label: across any fortnight expect roughly five wet and windy days, with the rest moderately windy and the odd shower, and rain that might be five minutes, an afternoon, or the whole day. Our row gives 15.6 precipitation days carrying 80.8mm and a 24.1 kph wind. Two things they add. The weather is local enough that you can sit in sunshine watching a neighbouring island get drenched; and the pattern usually gives a long break somewhere in June before July and August turn properly bad. The record: 31.7C days that feel like 36C, 27C nights and a 29.6C sea.

March is traditionally the most settled month of the Maldives year, and the forum's regulars recommend January to March as the block - calm breezes, calm sea, and the best snorkelling visibility of the year, with the caveat that visibility swings on tide, weather and which side of the atoll you are on. They are careful not to promise no rain: one poster's six March trips produced a storm on arrival that cleared, a pre-dawn thunderstorm and one five-minute squall across all of them, with the rest blue. The cost of the settled months is the obvious one - this is the most expensive and busiest stretch of the year. The record: 32C days that feel like 37C, 27C nights, 9.8 precipitation days, 10.9 hours of sun and a 29C sea.