? Re: Rain On Cruise to New Caledonia, Vanuatu, etc

Having a pretty good knowledge of the rain patterns in Florida & the U.S., as well as the Caribbean at varioustimes of the year, I am wondering about the islands around New Caledonia, Vanuatu and that region in mid February to mid March - ? While I know there is no way to predict exactly how it will be yr to yr, I'd love to hear from someone else who is familiar with that area. Especially those who have cruised there. Can we expect short, tropical showers and T storms that are brief with Heacy but short downpours, but usually fairly clear skies on and off throughout the day? Or does is stay overcast all day and is rain more or less happening most of the time?

Thanks for any replies!

No doubt the situation can vary, but for what it is worth, during a 14-d cruise during early March 2012 from Sydney to New Caledonia (3 stops), Vanuatu (2 stops) and Fiji (2 stops), and return to Sydney, we encountered significant rain 3 times. Two occasions were brief (approx 1 hr) downpours at Lifou (New Caledonia) and Dravuni Isl. (Fiji). Those did not interfere appreciably with our plans. The other occasion was prolonged and sometimes intense rain en route from Vanuatu to Fiji, continuing for about half of our day in Lautoka (Fiji). We were very glad that we had rain gear and umbrellas. With those exceptions, for the most part the weather was sunny and hot.

John

We have cruised in this area quite a lot but mainly in January and February.

Bear in mind this is the 'rainy and cyclone season' and Vanuatu experienced a devastating cyclone this year on March 15. This was reported as the worst ever cyclone experienced in this area.

However, we have never experienced any rain in Noumea and we have been there several times and only intermittent showers elsewhere (albeit heavy showers).

As you realise, there is no guarantee with the weather but if a cyclone is forecast the Captain will obviously take steps to avoid the area so this could mean a missed port or two. Chances are you won't encounter bad weather at all.

I hope you have a great cruise. :)

Thanks for the info! Here in the US a cyclone means the same thing as a tornado. However I believe it is different in the South Pacific, where cyclones and typhoons are called hurricanes. These South Pacific islands sounds very similar to the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, only in those locations it happens most often in August September and October. Whereas in June in Florida, you may have one nice shower a day in the afternoon. However by August or September the rain seems to happen to her three times in the afternoons and it can stay cloudy for a few hours. Despite that there is often a good deal of sunshine as well. We have been to French Polynesian and the Cook Islands but it was a totally different time of year as it was September.

A cyclone is the same as a hurricane, it's just what they're called in the South Pacific. Cyclone Pam that decimated Vanuatu was a Cat 5, the highest there is. I think it was similar in strength to Katrina and Sandy in the US.

As others have said the cruise season in Australia is also the cyclone season in the tropics, so chances of rain and storms are higher. Tropical storms don't usually rain all day, but it can be overcast the whole time. We did a cruise here in late December so early on in the season, and we got rain in the afternoon in Vila and it rained non stop our whole day at Mystery Island. Other than that the weather was nice. You get a big cyclone in the area though and all bets are off, when Pam came though one cruise that was supposed to go to the South Pacific instead went to Tasmania, so a completely different itinerary.

Thanks for the info! Here in the US a cyclone means the same thing as a tornado. However I believe it is different in the South Pacific, where cyclones and typhoons are called hurricanes.

Ahhh no - incorrect!

This may assist you in your storm terminology - hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons names determine their location but are all the same weather pattern.

Tornado's are a totally different weather formation - water tornados/spouts can and do appear in the Pacific year round but are less common.

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/cyclone.html

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Cyclone_vs_Hurricane

I have done two cruises to the South Pacific, one early March and one late March. Also this year I did a cruise across the top of Australia in February.

Our first cruise in early March, beautiful weather until halfway through the cruise, then a major cyclone hit the area. The captain did very well evading it and we were chased back to Sydney by the cyclone missing 2 ports and only having a half day in the third. This did not worry us as being Aussies we used it as an excuse to do the same cruise the following year, but two weeks later. However our International visitors were up in arms at missing all those ports, practically had a mutiny. They could not understand why we could not just nip over to an alternative port but it is a big ocean out there and when a cyclone is in the region most of the islands batten down for the storm. Also many islands are not prepared for Cruise ships, so you can't just nip over for a visit.

This second cruise, there was cyclones just before we left, we then had gorgeous weather with no rain for our cruise, so we were lucky. However another cyclone had built in Queensland and was effecting New South Wales so we had rough weather coming back into Sydney at the end of our cruise.

Our top of Australia cruise this year, we were definitely on cyclone watch. We were very lucky, cyclones were popping up all around the regions, but not when we were there and we had no rain at all. A week either side of when we went and we would not have been as lucky.

The moral of my tale, when sailing in the South Pacific go as later in the cruise season, or as early as possible, but still no guarantee as anywhere between October and April, the weather can be dicey. We are trying October this year, so I am very interested in what sort of weather we get.

... hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons names determine their location but are all the same weather pattern.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, there is one major difference between northern and southern hemisphere hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons. In the southern hemisphere the winds around these storms blow in a clockwise direction, whereas in the northern hemisphere they blow counterclockwise.

John

J.D., I believe that is true for how water swirls as it goes down the drain of a sink as well, correct?

PerfectlyPerth, I guess there was some miscommunication because you basically verified what I had said - that as I understood it, the terms hurricane, typhoon and - in your region of the world - cyclone - mean the same thing. Believe me, I do know the characteristics of that type of storm as I lived in Florida for 17 yrs. We currently live along the eastern edge of what is called "Tornado Alley" in the U.S. However, here the terms tornado and cyclone can be used domestically to describe the same type of storm.

Wastegirl, your cyclone season mimicks our hurricane season - just during different months of the year. June is officially the start of our season, and there is currently a hurricane called "Bianca" that hit the Pacific coast of Baja California in Mexico as a category 4, but has diminished on it's way towards San Diego in the U.S. Many times cruises get diverted in our Caribbean - esp. between Aug. and October. Luckily, there are quite a few dockable ports throughout the Caribbean as that is the world's busiest cruising grounds. Still, some ports take in a lot of ships on the same day, so there may/may not be a berth. However, some ships will anchor off shore and use tenders to transport pax to shore. Often a ship will just sail in a different direction, staying at sea, away from the storm's feeder bands, etc. Weather can still get a bit rough along the way, though. Some islands seem to get hit a lot more often than others in the Caribbean, however. I wondered if that might be the case around some of the island groups near Australia and New Zealand - ? If a cruiser has gone to great expense and spent many hours traveling to board their ship, then several of their ports were cancelled, it's human nature to feel highly disappointed. However, there are always some people who will be quite upset and act nasty. I would feel VERY disappointed myself! However, most of us realize no one should be blamed because the cruise lines (and airlines, etc.) cannot control Mother Nature! It's just plain ol' bad luck. So I do realize it's taking a chance to cruise in your part of the world in early in the year, but I was just hoping maybe the weather patterns around the islands I mentioned were not really all that active. It's not common for us to cruise during hurricane season in the U.S. but our window of opportunity is during your cyclone season so I guess we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed the weather will cooperate.

Thanks a lot for the replies!

mlbcruiser - if you look at a map you will notice that the Caribbean is quite populated by developed islands, many of which can take cruise ships. If you look at New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji, they are out on their own in the middle of the pacific, if there is a cyclone in the area there is a strong chance all the ports will be closed. Also you cannot cruise over to the Solomon Islands, it is just not logistically feasible especially as they are not set up for regular cruise ships, especially the bigger ones.

This was the problem when we missed ports on our first South Pacific cruise, the large European contingent could not understand why the Captain just did not pop over to another island group which was out of the way of the cyclone. I don't think they understood the tyranny of distance that exists in this part of the world.

So in a nutshell many South Pacific cruises go ahead without a hitch during the cyclone season, some heavy downpours at the worst, but not having your cruise interrupted by cyclones cannot be guaranteed. However that is cruising and it is the chance you take. Suffice to say when doing Northern Australian/South Pacific holidays at that time of the year everyone I know pours over the weather maps for weeks before leaving tracking cyclones and checking the weather.

You might like to look the Carnival Spirit, and the Australian Princess ships. They do cruises mid year out of the cyclone season. However people I know who have been on these cruises say the weather while sunny is a little cooler.

Good idea, Elise, except that we have other family events and work obligations making our window of opportunity to get away for so long late Feb. to mid-March. Additionally, this cruise and trip will take the place of our usual Caribbean cruise. We sometimes do a land trip plus a cruise in the E. or W. Mediterranean in late May to early June, except did one cruise in there in early Sept. (way too crowded in the popular ports then and prices are higher than late May to mid June).

When we cruised in the Society and Cook Islands, it took quite a long time to get from French Polynesia to Rarotonga. Seas were very rough on that section of the cruise as well. (That part was actually fun, though!). Also, our Hawaiian islands are "out there" by themselves in the Pacific, too. Similar to Fiji, etc. I guess. With regard to the Europeans or any cruisers coming to cruise the So. Pacific, no doubt some people have no clue about what to expect weather wise in a region. They don't bother to or know enough to check. I've known people here in the U.S. who wonder why the cruise prices out of FL or in the Caribbean are so much less in Sept. or Oct. :confused: They have NO idea there are more storms and rain then. Even though there are hurricanes on the news yr. after yr. in that region! Just the same, it's likely most of them don't encounter any major weather issues.

At least we will build some land time into our trip so that if we don't get good weather, we will still see some great things!

Thanks again.

So I do realize it's taking a chance to cruise in your part of the world in early in the year, but I was just hoping maybe the weather patterns around the islands I mentioned were not really all that active.

Just to answer this particular part, unfortunately yes, they weather patterns around these islands are very active. This year there were 4 cyclones in the Vanuatu/Fiji area and another 2 in North Queensland that effected the weather in the area. I've noticed that the cyclones are getting later and later in the season, traditionally Feb was the worst month but I've noticed in recent years March and April are getting a lot more than they used to. It also effects the weather coming and going from Sydney, it can be unpleasantly rough when there is a storm in the tropics. A carnival ship was stuck outside the heads this year for a day because it was too rough to enter the Harbour.

Interesting points, Jacs. A lot of the world ocean patterns seem to be dependent upon whether it's an "El Nino" year or a "La Nina" year, or neither! I know sometimes over in our part of the world predictions are made as to whether it will be an active year, whether there are likely to be major tropical activitiy causing a strong possibility of several high category hurricanes or just a few lower category ones. Some years the predictions are good, some not. Sometimes they are right but the systems don't affect very many land areas. I sort of like to hope that since it was a very active year in the So. Pacific this year, maybe it will be less so next year! (?) Anyone's guess, of course.

Looking at stats that was actually a slow season, the highest on record is 16 cyclones in the season and the average is 9.

I guess the outcome of this is nothing is certain, there's no real way to predict what weather you will get and you are taking a risk that you won't get to the port you want to or not get good weather.

As you can see from the replies Mlbcruiser you may experience everything from great weather to the possibility of a cyclone.

The chances are though, that you will have mostly fine weather with the occasional heavy shower.

Just to put it in perspective, we have sailed to/from Asia and Sydney/Brisbane 4 times in March and the seas have been like a mill pond each time. The only rain we have seen strangely enough has been out of 3 visits to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, it has been rained out twice. This time, we got lucky with sunny skies :) We also fortunately missed the effects of the cyclone this year so there is an element of luck involved if there is bad weather involved.

We have also sailed across the Pacific from North America and another time from South America, both times in February and apart from the odd shower experienced no bad weather. Our other sailings out into the South Pacific have been on local cruises from Sydney and we haven't had inclement weather either.

There are heaps of cruises from Australian ports from around September to April each year and very few run into foul weather but as others have mentioned, it can and does happen.

We have been fortunate and perhaps our luck is about to run out :eek: as being affected by a cyclone would certainly put a dampener on your enjoyment.

I really hope you experience sunny skies and smooth seas if you visit this part of the world.

bronte2, I think your comments are absolutely correct! Just hope WE get lucky! ;) Thank you for your sensible post!