The climate in Malaysia

Climate zone: tropics

High humidity in Malaysia and high temperatures are causing a pleasant weather at times, but also and partly tropical hot and humid. It is warm to hot all year round and invites to bathe at average water temperatures of 29 degrees. Dued to the lesser rain the best time for traveling is from February to June. Most precipitation decrease from October to December.

› Duration of daylight and sunshine in Malaysia

Temperature records of the last 59 years

The hottest temperature measured from 1960 to December 2019 was reported by the Kuala Lumpur Int Airp weather station. In October 2019 the record temperature of 39.0 °C was reported here. The hottest summer from July to September, based on all 15 weather stations in Malaysia below 50 metres altitude, was recorded in 2019 with an average temperature of 27.9 °C. This average temperature will normally be measured every 4 to 6 hours, thus also including the nights. Normally, this value is 27.2 degrees Celsius. The average maximum daily temperature at that time was 32.5 °C.

The coldest day in these 59 years was reported by the weather station Kuala Lumpur Int Airp. Here the temperature dropped to 0.2 °C in June 2014. Kuala Lumpur Int Airp lies at an altitude of 17 meters above sea level. The coldest winter (January to March) was in 1976 with an average temperature of 25.5 °C. In Malaysia, it is usual to have about 1.3 degrees more at 26.8 °C for this three-month period.

Long-term development of temperatures from 1992 - 2019

In contrast to single record values, a long-term development cannot simply be brought about by all weather stations in the country. Both the number and the locations are constantly changing. A simply calculated average value would give a falsified result. If several measuring stations in particularly cold mountain or coastal regions are added in one year, the average would already decrease as a result of this alone. If a station fails during the summer or winter months, it does not provide any values and falsifies the average again. The subsequent long-term development was therefore reduced to only 11 measuring points in order to have actually comparable data over as long a period as possible.

In the years 1992 to 2019 there were only these 11 weather stations in the whole country, which reported continuous temperature values. From these weather reports we have created a long-term development that shows the monthly average temperatures. The hottest month in this entire period was Mai 1998 with 29.2 °C. Januar 1996 was the coldest month with an average temperature of 25.8 °C.

The average annual temperature was about 27.0 °C in the years after 1992 and about 27.6 °C in the last years before 2019. It has therefore increased only slightly by about 0.6 °C over the past 28 years. This trend only applies to the selected 11 weather stations in Malaysia. A considerably more comprehensive evaluation of the global warming has been provided separately.




More detailed information on global warming with a view by continent can also be found on our topic page on climate change.