We get a lot of weather-question all year around. Fair enough, what has more impact to a day of scuba diving than wind, rain, sun-light, waves and swell? But as you can imagine a forecast more than 4 days in advance is pretty useless. No matter what App you use - near the ocean with countless island around weather differs every 10km. But over the years we gained some experience.
Rule of thumb
October is a great month to visit El Nido and whole Palawan. Because the south-west monsoon and rainy has stopped and the strong winds from north have not started yet. And 2019 was another GOLDEN October. Almost zero rain, flat sea, 15 meters visibility and a mild wind that keeps temperature tolerable. Almost same with April and May – clear skies, no winds great visibility – but Hot Hot Hot.
The Weather doesn't care about Holidays
Christmas to New Year and the whole January until Chinese New Year are the busiest days in El Nido. People from all-over the world visit Palawan as its Winter in Western hemispheres or they simply have a gap to travel. But Climate and Ocean don't care much when is your holiday and follow their own rhythm. Means: we often meet people being surprised about conditions in that period. December until March is the time of the year when the ocean here turns “ cold “ with around 25C. Visibility at the same time goes down bellow 10 meters due to Plankton Blooming. And there are still LPAs and even strong Taifuns effecting the Philippines from November even until end of January. Which can result in cancellation of all boat tours including Scuba Diving for several days. Often the Christmas week has been under Storm Signal.
The Weather Surprise
2019 was a HUGE exception: because of the global weather phenomena EL NINO El Nido was not effected by any Taifun in January or February 2019. What that means for 2020? No idea.
Lucky us?
A side-effect of that weather constellation was having almost zero rain near the costs of El Nido from end December 2018 until Mid May 2019. Imagine that. Northern Palawan run out of water almost 2 month earlier than usually – while being full of thousands of travelers. Not every guest who paid for a nice Hotel was happy to hear “ Please understand, we have to safe water “. Another side-effect that we all have to face is the trouble with a lot of untreated waste water zipping into the ground and even in shallow bays. Improvements are coming but take time.
A bottom line
Please take note: as long as conditions are safe, we bring you to the best diving sites around El Nido. If not – you get a full refund. Please understand, it's not us who makes wind, rain or visibility turn bad. It's simply nature.
