Weekly note
Sanya: grey concrete building during daytime

Sanya in May

good · a good time to go

The year in Sanya

Tap a month for its page

  1. Sanya in January: sweet spot
  2. Sanya in February: sweet spot
  3. Sanya in March: sweet spot
  4. Sanya in April: sweet spot
  5. Sanya in May: good
  6. Sanya in June: ok
  7. Sanya in July: ok
  8. Sanya in August: ok, busy
  9. Sanya in September: avoid
  10. Sanya in October: ok, busy
  11. Sanya in November: good, busy
  12. Sanya in December: good, busy
  • Sweet spot
  • Good
  • OK
  • Avoid
  • Busy
May at Sanya is 31°C by day and 26°C at night, with 6 rainy days and about 11 hours of sun a day. 31C max, 6 rainy days.

The numbers

Daily high31°C
Nightly low26°C
Feels like, afternoon37°C
Rainy days, 1 mm or more6 · 118 mm
Humidity83%
Sunshine11.0 h/day
Daylight13.0 h/day
Beach and sea24 of 31 days dry and 23–35 °C; sea 29 °C, warm good
Crowds80 / 100, higher is quieter

Ten-year averages for this calendar month. A rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts it. The model these figures come from drizzles more than a rain gauge, the more so the warmer the month, so its days count from 2 mm, rising to 5 mm in the hottest.

Weather read at Yalong Bay (or Sanya Bay), 11 km from the airport (SYX): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

How busy it gets

May: quiet. Busiest in August, November and December; quietest in February, May and June.

Public holidays in May

Holidays crowd a place out and push fares up around them; they count toward the crowd score above.

Sanya in pictures

What to pack

  • Summer clothes by day, highs around 31°C.
  • A packable rain jacket for the 6 or so rainy days.
  • Sun protection: about 11 hours of sunshine a day.
  • Humidity averages 83%; breathable fabrics dry faster.

Each line is a threshold over the ten-year figures above, not advice from anywhere else.

Before you go

Type A and C and I plugs at 220 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the Renminbi. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for China: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

On arrival in Sanya: the apps, paying, getting around, tipping and the emergency numbers.

May elsewhere

In May from

The other months at Sanya

← April · All twelve months at Sanya · June →

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