Climate - Maldives - annual temperature

In a nation with less than one percent land and over 99 percent sea, the weather obviously plays a significant role in day-to-day life. For a long time Maldivians have organized their lives based on a system on nakaiy. Each nakaiy is 13 or 14 days long and is divided into two seasons; iruvai northest monsoon and hulhangu south west monsoon. The nakaiy calendar is still used to determine such things as the best time for fishing, travel or planting crops.

The Maldives has a tropical climate with warm temperatures year round and a great deal of sunshine. The warm tropical climate results in relatively minor variations in daily temperature throughout the year. The hottest month on average is April and the coolest, December. The weather is determined largely by the monsoons.

There is a significant variation in the monthly rainfall levels. February is the driest with January to April being relatively dry, May and October records the highest average monthly rainfall. The southwest monsoon or hulhangu from May to September is the wet season. Rough seas and strong winds are common during this period. The northeast monsoon iruvai falls between December to April. This is a period of clear skies, lower humidity and very little rain. The Maldives is in the equatorial belt and therefore severe storms and cyclones are extremely rare events. However the country is affected whenever cyclones form in the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea. The spiraling clouds of the weather systems appear over the Maldives causing spells of rain.

Maldives is located at the equator and experiences monsoonal climate. Maldives has two distinct seasons; dry season (northeast monsoon) and wet season (southwest monsoon). In these two seasons the temperature varies hardly. Northeast monsoon extends from January to March. Since Maldives consists of small islands and are surrounded by seas, hot days are often tempered by cooling sea breezes and balmy evening temperatures. Throughout the year, temperature remains almost same in the Maldives. However, daily temperature ranges from around 31 degrees Celsius in daytime to 23 degrees Celsius in nighttime. The mean daily maximum temperature for Central parts (Hulhule) of the Maldives is 30.5 degrees Celsius and minimum temperature is 25.7 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, mean daily maximum and minimum temperature for South (Gan) is 30.9 and 24.5 degree Celsius, respectively. Furthermore, mean daily maximum and minimum temperature for North (Hanimaadhoo) is 30.7 and 25.2 degrees Celsius, respectively. The highest temperature ever recorded in the Maldives was 36.8°C, recorded on 19 May 1991 at Kadhdhoo Meteorological Office. Likewise, the minimum temperature ever recorded in the Maldives was 17.2°C, recorded at the National Meteorological Centre on 11th April 1978. The wet season- southwest monsoon runs from mid-May to November. In this season Maldives experiences torrential rain. Central, Southern and Northern parts of the Maldives receive annual average rainfall of 1924.7mm, 2277.8mm, and 1786.4mm, respectively. The highest rainfall ever recorded in the Maldives with in 24 hour period was recorded on 9th July 2002 at Kaadedhdhoo Meteorological Office and amounts to 219.8mm of rainfall. The fact that the Maldives is located at the equator, Maldives receives plentiful of sunshine through out the year. On average Southern atolls (Gan) of the Maldives receives 2704.07 hours of sunshine each year. Furthermore, on average central (Hulhule) parts of the country receives 2784.51 hours of sunshine per year.