Month by month
Bali in April
The month the wet season lets go, and the only one that is measurably better at its end than at its start.
April averages 134mm, but the number that matters is that its second fortnight gets about 45 per cent less rain a day than its first. No other month in the Bali year changes that much inside itself.
This is the wet season letting go, and it lets go gradually rather than on a date. That makes April the mirror of November, which does the same thing in reverse, and it makes the two halves of April genuinely different holidays. Days sit at 31.2°C, as they do in every month.
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What April actually measures
On the chart April is the steep part of the descent, between March's 210mm and May's 80mm. Most of that fall happens inside April itself.
Rainfall
134 mm
On average. An independent check at the same point puts it at 123mm.
Across the month
5.8 → 3.2 mm
Per day, first fortnight against second. The widest gap of any month.
Range, 30 years
35 to 293 mm
Drier than an average August in one year, wetter than an average January in another.
The monthly average has two independent sources behind it and they agree to within three per cent. The thirty-year range and the two fortnight figures do not: the product we check against publishes a climatology rather than a daily series, so both come from the reanalysis alone. What corroborates the fortnight split is its direction rather than its size, and the fact that the two extremes of that table across the whole year are April and November, the two months when the monsoon turns. As on the other month pages there is no count of rainy days and no separate figure by region.
Late April is not early April
Averaged across thirty years, the first half of April delivers 5.8mm of rain a day and the second half 3.2mm. That is a fall of about 45 per cent, and it is the largest such gap in the Bali calendar: no other month reshapes itself that much between its first fortnight and its last.
That is unusually actionable, because it points one way. Nearly every other decision in Bali planning is a trade, rain against crowds or price against certainty. This one is not. A late-April trip is drier than an early-April trip at the same price, in the same pre-season quiet, with the same everything else. If your dates can move by a fortnight within the month, there is no argument for the earlier one. If they can move by a month, May is where the odds cross from unlikely to likely, and by more than the averages suggest.
It also explains why April divides opinion so sharply. Two travellers describing "Bali in April" may have been there two weeks apart and seen a wet-season month and a dry-season month. Both are telling the truth.
The risk it shares with November
April and November are the only two months whose thirty-year record runs from drier than an average August, the driest month, to wetter than an average January, the wettest. April has been as low as 35mm and as high as 293mm. That is what a transition month is: the monsoon does not turn on a date, and the date it turns moves by weeks from one year to the next.
The difference between the two is direction, and it is the whole reason to prefer one end of each. April dries as it runs, at a ratio of 0.55; November wets up, at 1.36. So the safe fortnights are the late one in April and the early one in November, and the two risky ones sit back to back across the middle of the wet season. October is the third month on a moving season and states the rule for all three. If you are choosing between the two shoulder months, that is the comparison that decides it rather than the monthly averages, which are closer than they look.
Where to base yourself in April
April is the month the coastal options reopen. The west coast starts behaving as the trades swing offshore, so Uluwatu and the Bukit come back into season, and Canggu and Seminyak get the dry-season version of themselves without the dry-season crowd. Sanur remains the safest single base if you want water you can swim in whatever the month does.
The highlands are a better bet than they are in the wet season and a worse one than in August. If a Batur sunrise or the Munduk waterfalls are the reason for the trip, put them in the second half of the month rather than the first, for exactly the reason above.
All twelve bases, with what the airport transfer costs to each, are on our where to stay in Bali page.
What April is good for
Getting the dry season early. By late April the weather is close to what people come for in July, and the crowds and the prices that come with July are still three months away. Of the four genuinely good-value windows in the Bali year, this is the one with the best weather attached to it.
The landscape is also caught between two states, which is worth something. The rice terraces and waterfalls still carry the green and the volume they build up over the wet season, without the cloud that comes with earning it. By August the same places are at their thinnest.
For surfers April is the opening of the west-coast season; our surfing guide has the switch in full. For how April sits against the other eleven on crowds as well as rain, see when to visit.
Every month of the Bali year, with its measured rainfall and what the average hides, is on Bali month by month.
Bali in April: common questions
What is the weather like in Bali in April?+
April averages 134mm in the southern lowlands, down from March's 210mm and on the way to May's 80mm. It is the month the wet season lets go. The average hides the most useful thing about it: the first half of April averages 5.8mm of rain a day and the second half 3.2mm, a drop of about 45 per cent, which is the largest within-month gap of any month in the Bali year. Daytime highs are 31.2C.
Is April a good time to visit Bali?+
It is one of the best-value months on the calendar, and the second half is better than the first. The dry season is arriving, the July and August crowds are three months away, and prices have not moved yet. The catch is that April is a transition month, so the year-to-year variation is wide: some Aprils are effectively dry-season months and some still belong to the wet season.
Is it better to visit Bali in early or late April?+
Late April, measurably. Averaged across thirty years the first fortnight gets 5.8mm of rain a day and the second 3.2mm. Nothing else in the Bali calendar moves that much inside a single month, and it moves the right way: an April trip improves as it goes. If your dates are flexible by a fortnight, take the later one.
Is April in the rainy season in Bali?+
It is the handover, and which side of it you land on varies. Across the thirty-year record April has run from 35mm, which is less than an average August, to 293mm, which is more than an average January. Only November has the same spread, and the two are the months when the monsoon changes direction.
How hot is Bali in April?+
About 31.2C by day and 24.9C at night, near the top of a very narrow range. Bali's daytime temperature moves barely two and a half degrees across the whole year, so April feels like every other month. What changes is the rain, and in April it changes within the month as well as between years.
Can you surf in Bali in April?+
Yes, and it is the start of the good run. From about April the southeast trades begin blowing offshore on the west coast, which is what grooms the Bukit reefs at Uluwatu, Padang Padang, Bingin and Balangan. April gets that with a fraction of the crowd that arrives for it in July and August.
Are the boats to Nusa Penida reliable in April?+
More reliable than in the wet season and less than in August. The fast boats from Sanur are cancelled when the sea is rough, and April is when rough days start thinning out. Later in the month is safer than earlier, for the same reason the rain eases, but it is still worth putting an island day in the middle of a trip rather than at the end of it.