Month by month
Bali in February
In thirty years of record it has never once come in dry. Book it knowing that, and it is the best-value month on the calendar.
February is the only month in this site's thirty-year record that has never once come in dry. Not one February in thirty delivered under 100mm.
That is a more useful thing to know than the average, which is 253mm and second only to January. Every other month has managed at least one dry year, so every other month can be hoped for. February cannot. Book it for what it reliably is, which is the emptiest and cheapest version of the island, and it is an excellent month. Book it hoping for sun and the record says you will be disappointed.
This page contains affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you. It helps keep this guide free.
What February actually measures
February is the second bar on the chart and, for the traveller, the least ambiguous one.
Rainfall
253 mm
Second only to January. An independent check at the same point puts it at 252mm.
Dry years
0 of 30
Under 100mm. The only month in the record with none at all.
Driest year
116 mm
The highest floor of any month, and wetter than 6 other months’ averages.
The monthly average has two independent sources behind it and they agree to within three per cent. The dry-year count and the year-to-year extremes come from the reanalysis alone. The 100mm line is ours, about three millimetres a day. As on the other month pages there is no count of rainy days and no separate figure by region.
The month that has never once been dry
Every other month in the Bali year has, at some point in the last thirty, delivered a dry one. January has managed it once, December twice, March three times. February has managed it 0 times. It is the only month on the record that can say that.
The floor tells the same story from the other end. February's driest year in thirty delivered 116mm, which is the highest minimum of any month, and which is more rain than the whole-month average of May, June, July, August, September, October. In other words a bad August is drier than the best February ever recorded here.
That sounds like an argument against the month and it is not. It is an argument for planning it honestly. A February trip that assumes rain and is built to enjoy itself anyway is a very good trip: the island is at its greenest, the prices are at their lowest, and the places that queue in August are empty. A February trip that gambles on a dry fortnight is the one bet in this calendar that the record says has never paid off.
The drying starts here
One thing does move in your favour inside the month. February's first fortnight averages 10.4mm of rain a day and its second 6.81mm, a fall of about 35 per cent, which is the number 3 drying of any month in the year. February is where the wet season begins letting go, and March and April continue it, April most steeply of all.
That does not make late February dry. It makes late February less wet than early February by a margin worth having when nothing else about the month is negotiable. If your dates can move within the month, move them later, and if they can move out of it entirely, every month after this one improves.
Where to base yourself in February
The wet-season answer, and more firmly than in any other month. Sanur is the strongest single base: a reef keeps the water swimmable when the west coast is churned up, and the flat seafront path gives you somewhere to walk between showers. Jimbaran holds a calm bay twenty minutes from the airport.
Munduk and Kintamani catch more cloud and rain than the lowlands in every month and most of all now, so treat them as a night rather than a base and treat a Batur sunrise as a lottery ticket. Ubud works if the trip is about the landscape rather than the sea, which in February it probably should be.
Because you will spend more time in the room than you would in August, the property itself is worth more of the budget than usual. All twelve bases, with what the airport transfer costs to each, are on our where to stay in Bali page.
What February is good for
Everything the rain pays for and everything the crowd ruins. The rice terraces and the waterfalls are at their fullest and greenest, and the sites that are shoulder to shoulder in July are yours. So are the tables at the restaurants worth eating at, and the road north, which takes the time the map claims.
Indoor Bali is genuinely good, which is not true of every wet destination. The spas, the cooking classes, the markets, the museums in Ubud and the food do not care what the sky is doing, and neither does the temple architecture that half the island came to see.
For how February sits against the other eleven on crowds as well as rain, see when to visit, and our weather guide for the pattern across the year.
Every month of the Bali year, with its measured rainfall and what the average hides, is on Bali month by month.
Bali in February: common questions
What is the weather like in Bali in February?+
Wet, reliably. February averages 253mm in the southern lowlands, second only to January's 284mm, and in thirty years it has never once come in under 100mm. Its driest February on record delivered 116mm, which is still more than the whole-month average of six other months. Daytime highs are 31.1C.
Is February a bad time to visit Bali?+
It is the wrong month for a trip that needs sun and the right one for a trip that does not. The rain is as close to a certainty as this record gets, so nobody should book February hoping for a dry fortnight. What you get instead is the emptiest, greenest, cheapest version of the island, and everything indoors and cultural works exactly as well as it does in August.
Does it rain every day in Bali in February?+
Not all day, no. The wet-season pattern holds: a warm and often bright morning, then a heavy downpour in the afternoon or evening that clears within an hour or two. February has more of those than most months and more of the longer wet spells, but a February day is not a washout by default. Plan the outdoor part for the morning and the month works.
Is it better to visit Bali in early or late February?+
Late. The first fortnight averages 10.4mm of rain a day and the second 6.81mm, a fall of about 35 per cent. February is where the wet season starts letting go, and the drying carries on through March and April. It does not make February dry; it makes late February less wet than early February by a margin worth having.
Is February cheaper than other months in Bali?+
It is among the cheapest, and for a straightforward reason: the Christmas peak is over, the Australian school year has restarted, and the weather is at its least appealing. Mid-January through February is the emptiest stretch of the Bali year. If cost and quiet are what you are optimising for and you can take the rain, this is the window.
Can you surf in Bali in February?+
On the east coast. February is inside the wet-season pattern, so the west-coast reefs of the Bukit are unreliable and Keramas and the Nusa Lembongan reefs are the ones working. A February trip built around Uluwatu is a February trip built on the wrong coast.
Are the boats to Nusa Penida running in February?+
Often, but treat them as the least reliable of the year alongside January's. The crossings from Sanur are cancelled when the sea is rough, and rough days are at their most frequent now. Put an island day in the middle of the trip, never on the last full day, and consider staying a night on the island rather than depending on two crossings in one day.