Kerala, India Tourism and Weather
How Rain and Shine Affect Tourism in Kerala India
The weather in Kerala may come as something of a surprise to the uninitiated. The season you choose to travel, has a great bearing on what your experiences will be like.
The Kerala Weather
One of the best things about tourism in Kerala, a southern state of India, is the weather. Unlike countries such as Australia where cold winters and hot summers are as predictable as night and day, Kerala has a more or less steady temperature that hovers in the vicinity of 35 degrees Celsius almost throughout the year. Depending on where you’re coming from this can feel like an inferno or a soothing balmy embrace.
Winter in Kerala
In Kerala, however, there’s no escaping the humidity. It opens pores and makes you sweat. It’s like being in a mild sauna all day long. The evenings are relatively cool and in the winter months from November to January it can actually feel pretty cool. The evening temperatures can come down then to the low 20s, when relaxing with a glass of red in the veranda of your resort seems the best thing to do. Winter mornings begin with a misty dawn that slowly dissipates in the face of the rising sun. Droplets fall off the lush greenery as the earth warms up gloriously.
Summer in Kerala
End of February sees a rise in heat that continues relentlessly across the summer months of March, April, and May. The flowering trees along highways and across parks will be in full bloom presenting marvellous views. The greenery and thriving blooms that you see from the air-conditioned interiors of your vehicle or hotel room, seem incredibly at odds with the intense heat outside. To escape the heat and dust, most folks flee to the beautiful hill stations of Kerala. Just when you think you can’t take the heat anymore, the monsoon season hits the state.
Monsoon in Kerala
By early June, the skies turn almost black. Heavy clouds loom in ominous silence over the tree tops for an interminably long time before they burst forth in rain. It hits the earth with an unbelievable force, almost physically beating up the shrubs and washing the trees clean of the dusty summer. The monsoon season in Kerala is beginning to be a great tourist attraction. It is a wonderful sight to see the rain come pouring down as you sit in the safety of your houseboat, in splendid isolation in the middle of a lagoon.
Once the monsoon is over and done with by the end of August, the warm weather returns with a vengeance and lingers for a couple of months till late November. When the evenings begin to get cooler, you know winter’s not far behind.
