Weather in Kota Kinabalu in April

A hard month. April is a hard month in Kota Kinabalu, and worth planning around. You should expect rain on 18 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

Kota Kinabalu barely has seasons. April scores 43 out of 100 against a best of 59 in February — a gap small enough that the month you choose matters far less here than the week you choose.

Rain on 18 days, 4 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 83% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 28 days top 30 °C, making the heat continuous rather than occasional; the day barely swings — 5.4 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest April day reached 34.3 °C and the coldest night fell to 23.5 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 56 mm — roughly 41% of the month's rain in one day.

April is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest April on record still delivered 240 mm against 57 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 138 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 4.7 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 83%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How April sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.8 °C in March, 31.5 here, 31 in May. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: May brings 5 days more of it, so the earlier half of a flexible trip is the safer half.

Daylight in April

Kota Kinabalu sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.2 hours in April, 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 29 °C in April — 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.

April in Kota Kinabalu versus nearby

If Kota Kinabalu is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Sandakan is a better bet in April — 2.5 °C cooler, 2 days more rain. Zamboanga is a better bet in April — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain.

So: April works, with February the better month by 16 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Kota Kinabalu

See all twelve months in Kota Kinabalu, or where else to go in April.