April or August?

Fellow TT-ers,

I'd need your help please. My fiance and I have chosen the Cooks as our honeymoon destination. We are getting married in February but for several reasons we have the choice of going in either April or August. We'll be going for two weeks and will be staying on Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Apart from lazing on the beach we're interested in snorkelling, maybe do a dive course (neither of us have ever dived before) and doing the cross island hike.

As this is our honeymoon we would like perfect weather, of course, haha :) But on a more serious note, which of the two months would be better weather-wise, as in good visibility for snorkelling/diving, less rain....?

Cheers guys!

Check this out: http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=918040&refer=&cityname=Rakahanga-Cook-Islands

Hi

This is a Cook Islands site which may be more useful. It also contains lots of other info, not just climate.

http://www.stats.gov.ck/Statistics/Environment/climate.htm

April or August? I'd go for April. It's still in the so-called rainy season but at the end of it. Still nice and warm, including the water. August is still their winter, mild by our standards but the water has cooled down somewhat and the evenings are cooler.

But either would be good. My favourite months? May and October/November.

I would choose August over April.

April is still the typhoon season and you stand the chance of losing a big chunk of time to a tropical depression ...or worse, a typhoon. Also the whales show up in August as well and you might get lucky and see one or two... and the offshore fishing is better in August.

The Cook Islands don't have a typhoon season.

It's the cyclone season - and they are different things. Yes, cyclones have occurred in April but Raro is usually spared and you'd be unlucky to encounter one that late in the season.

Cyclones, Typhoons and Hurricanes are all tropical cyclonic storms. The only difference is the longitude in which they occur and whether the British, Japanese or Americans track and name them.

Beginning in 2003 I have had one flight cancellation and sat out two 3-day stalled depressions in the Cook Islands. In that same period the Cook Islands have had at least three cyclones hit them as well as multiple tropical depressions.

Like I said... my preference would be for August over April.

It's not a competition h200h

But I've been travelling to Rarotonga regularly since the late 1980s and I do know what happens with their weather reasonably well.

I'm sure the posters will make up their own minds and will enjoy their holiday whatever they decide.

Edited by: agingaquarian

There are some technical differences between hurricances, typhoons and cyclones too (in terms of strength). Hurricances are stronger than cyclones, and I think (but are not sure) that cyclones are stronger than typhoons (based on the fact I've been in a typhoon and it was certainly no cyclone). To some extent this is scientists applying specific meanings to the different terms that have been used.

I've only been to Rarotonga once - during the summer / cyclone season and I found the weather perfect. I have spent alot of time in Tonga and find the "winter" months there cool, so would go for April if it is warmer. I'm not sure about Rarotonga, but in Tonga the sea is also calmer during the summer (except during a storm of course) because the trade winds stop blowing for a bit. Whales would be tempting though....

I just love the way these threads morph into unpredictable rabbit trails like this one. It is similar to a bunch of people sitting around in a room chatting. Please don't take offense but I'm the technical type that always has to introduce facts and sources to state my case. In regards to the Cyclone-Hurricane-Typhoon thing, here it is:

Mother Nature does not care what we call them. She makes them the same way and they have the same effect around the globe. Of course each individual one will vary depending on the conditions during it's formation and existence. Some will form and dissipate without ever encountering land. Some will wreak havoc upon man and his contrivances. They are generically referred to as "Tropical Cyclones."

I think it's interesting to note that regardless of what they are called in a specific region, most are referred to as "tropical depressions" or "Tropical Storms" until they reach wind speeds of 73 kts. I think that's probably because they are legacy monikers and do not denote any other feature except the regional origin of the name.

Whatever you call them they are an essential element for the maintenance of the global environment in that they stir things up on a regular basis. They have also played an important role in the distribution of many animal and plant species throughout the Pacific Islands.

Here's a reference from the NOAA website:

+"The terms "hurricane" and "typhoon" are regionally specific names for a strong "tropical cyclone".

A tropical cyclone is the generic term for a non-frontal synoptic scale low-pressure system over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized convection (i.e. thunderstorm activity) and definite cyclonic surface wind circulation (Holland 1993)."+

Regarding wind speeds (also from the NOAA site):

+"Tropical cyclones with maximum sustained surface winds of less than 17 m/s (34 kt, 39 mph) are usually called "tropical depressions" (This is not to be confused with the condition mid-latitude people get during a long, cold and grey winter wishing they could be closer to the equator ;-)). Once the tropical cyclone reaches winds of at least 17 m/s (34 kt, 39 mph) they are typically called a "tropical storm" or in Australia a Category 1 cyclone and are assigned a name. If winds reach 33 m/s (64 kt, 74 mph), then they are called:

"hurricane" (the North Atlantic Ocean, the Northeast Pacific Ocean east of the dateline, or the South Pacific Ocean east of 160E)
"typhoon" (the Northwest Pacific Ocean west of the dateline)
"Category 3 cyclone" (the Southwest Pacific Ocean west of 160E or Southeast Indian Ocean east of 90E)
"very severe cyclonic storm" (the North Indian Ocean)
"tropical cyclone" (the Southwest Indian Ocean)
(Neumann 1993).+

No Offense. My terminology came from a scientific paper that references WMO (I don't have time now to see if these definitions are still there - the paper is a few years old so may be its changed).

It defines a major hurricane as one with winds >167 km/h, a tropical cyclone of hurricane intensity (>117 km/h), a severe tropical cyclone (>88 km/h) and a tropical cyclone (>62 km/h). I have no idea about the typhoon but I experienced one in the Philippines and it was not so bad. Plus, the local people I spoke to said they get several a year which wouldn't leave much if it was what I thought a cyclone was (I have experienced the formation of a cyclone, and know people who were in one in Tonga).

I agree that mother nature doesn't care, but was under the impression scientists had used the various terms to give some categories of severity - which are probably only known to them(?)

Like the names, differences in determining tropical cyclone intensity vary by region. In the US a scale of 1 to 5 is used. A category 1 has sustained winds of 64 to 82 knots . The scale is pretty linear with a category 5 storm having sustained winds greater than 135 knots or 249 km/hr.

I think you'll find that each region will have categories that begin around the 65-knot range and go up to the over-135 knot range.

The method of measuring the wind speed varies by region as well. Most use sustained winds measured at ten meters above the ground. But some are different... Australia for example averages gusts and sustained winds over a 10-minute period and India averages gusts over a 3-minute period. So accurate comparisons are difficult.

But they are all talking about the same natural phenomenon, the tropical cyclonic storm. And with the exception of rotational direction they are pretty much the same.