Weather in Kota Bharu in May

A hard month. May is a hard month in Kota Bharu, and worth planning around. You should expect rain on 26 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

May ranks 12 of 12 — near the bottom of Kota Bharu's year. February is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 29 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain on 26 of the month's 31 days, 4 of them heavy. At that frequency a wet-weather backup is not a contingency, it is the itinerary — book the indoor things first and treat the clear days as the bonus. Pack for 31 °C days and 27.1 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 25 days top 30 °C, making the heat continuous rather than occasional; the day barely swings — 3.9 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 34.1 °C and the coldest night fell to 25.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 41 mm — roughly 27% of the month's rain in one day.

May is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest May on record still delivered 274 mm against 72 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 154 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 5.7 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 80%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How May sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.5 °C in April, 31 here, 30.8 in June. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain has already shifted: 9 days more than April had.

Daylight in May

Kota Bharu sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.4 hours in May, against a range of just 0.7 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 30.5 °C in May — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. This is the warmest the water gets all year.

How busy it gets

Off season. The genuine off season: cheapest by a distance, with the caveat that some tours and restaurants close entirely.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

May in Kota Bharu versus nearby

If Kota Bharu is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Ipoh is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 2 days less rain. Kota Kuala Muda is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days.

So: May is a compromise. February is 29 points better and is what Kota Bharu is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Kota Bharu

See all twelve months in Kota Bharu, or where else to go in May.