Weather in Padang in May

A hard month. May asks something of you. Go in knowing what. You should expect rain on 21 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

Padang barely has seasons. May scores 43 out of 100 against a best of 47 in January — a gap small enough that the month you choose matters far less here than the week you choose.

Rain on 21 of the month's 31 days, 7 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. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 87% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 21 days top 30 °C, making the heat continuous rather than occasional; the day barely swings — 4.4 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 32.7 °C and the coldest night fell to 23.7 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 100 mm — roughly 44% of the month's rain in one day.

May is moderately variable: 87 mm in the driest year against 443 mm in the wettest, around an average of 227 mm. Roughly two Mays in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity at 87% is the real story though — it is the number that decides how the day feels, not the 30.4 °C.

How May sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.2 °C in April, 30.4 here, 30 in June. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain has already shifted: 5 days fewer than April had.

Daylight in May

Padang sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.1 hours in May, against a range of just 0.1 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 5.3 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

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 Padang versus nearby

If Padang is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Pekanbaru is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain. Singapore is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 5 days more rain.

So: May is effectively as good as it gets here — 4 points behind January, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Padang

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