Maui has 7 of the world’s 13 climate sub-zones under the Köppen classification, and 4 of its 5 major zones. Only the Big Island has more, on five times the land. The map below marks 8 zones, but two of them are the same Köppen zone drawn in two shades, so the count is 7.
Those 7 zones pack into a small island. Leave the near-desert coast at Kīhei before dawn and you can stand in freezing tundra on the summit of Haleakalā by sunrise, a climb of nearly 10,000 feet in under 40 miles of road. Behind Lāhainā, where about 12 inches of rain fall a year, the West Maui summit of Puʻu Kukui collects close to 400.
For the trip-planning version of this map, month-by-month rainfall, temperatures and cloud cover for both sides of the island, see our Maui weather guide.
Table of contents
How many climate zones does Maui have?
Maui packs 7 climate zones into about 730 square miles. The count depends on which system you use, and the most widely used is the Köppen scheme (Wikipedia, or explained in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences). It sorts the planet into 5 major climate zones, splits those into 13 sub-zones, and splits those again into finer groups.
Following the Köppen scheme, Maui has 4 of the world’s 5 major climate zones and 7 of the 13 sub-zones. That is the same major-zone count as the Big Island, on a fraction of the land.
We marked these zones on the map below. The map lists 8 different climate zones, but only 7 are distinct under Köppen. Temperate “summer-dry warm” and “summer-dry cool” both belong to the temperate dry climate, drawn in two shades to show the split by elevation.
Climate map of Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi. Temperate summer-dry warm and summer-dry cool are one Köppen zone, drawn in two shades to show the elevation split.
Which climate zones are NOT on Maui?
Six of the world’s 13 sub-zones do not reach Maui. Only one of them turns up elsewhere in the state:
- Dry arid, true desert (found on the Big Island)
- Temperate winter dry
- Continental winter dry
- Continental summer dry
- Continental continuously wet
- Polar ice caps
The desert line is the one that separates Maui from the Big Island. Maui’s driest coasts, around Kīhei and Lāhainā, land in semi-arid steppe and stop just short of true desert. The Big Island’s leeward pockets cross that line; Maui’s do not.
How Maui compares to the other islands
Five zones are on all four main islands: tropical continuously wet, monsoon, tropical dry, temperate summer-dry, and temperate continuously wet. Only three zones separate the islands, and they stack in one order: whatever a smaller island has, the bigger ones have too.
- Big Island, 8 zones: the only true desert in the state, plus tundra on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.
- Maui, 7 zones: tundra on Haleakalā and steppe at Kīhei, but no desert.
- Kauaʻi, 6 zones: steppe on the west coast, and no summit high enough for tundra.
- Oʻahu, 5 zones: the narrowest range of the four, missing both dry zones and the tundra.
Height sets one of the two limits, and Maui clears it. Tundra needs roughly 8,900 feet, and Haleakalā’s band starts at 8,924. Dryness sets the other. That is the one Maui misses: its driest ground is steppe, running 0 to 1,137 feet along the leeward coast.
The climate zones of all Hawaiian islands on one map. The state spans 8 of the world’s 13 zones, and every one of them is found on the Big Island.
The 7 Maui climate zones, region by region
Maui spreads its 7 zones across four of the five Köppen families, missing only the continental one.
| Zone | Elevation band | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| Dry semi-arid (steppe) | 0 to 1,137 ft | Leeward beaches from Kīhei and Wailea up to Kāʻanapali, plus Kahoʻolawe |
| Tropical dry | 30 to 1,739 ft | Mid and lower leeward slopes, and the isthmus around Kahului |
| Tropical continuously wet | 41 to 1,572 ft | Windward slopes above Hāna, and the Puʻu Kukui summit in West Maui |
| Monsoon | 113 to 1,686 ft | Upper windward slopes above Haʻikū and the wetter Hāna Highway |
| Temperate continuously wet | 1,756 to 6,547 ft | Mid-elevation windward slopes around Makawao and upper Haʻikū |
| Temperate summer dry | 2,045 to 8,232 ft | Upcountry Kula and Makawao, and the higher ground toward Polipoli |
| Polar tundra | 8,924 to 9,770 ft | The summit of Haleakalā |
Bands are where each zone mostly sits, not hard lines.
Humid Tropical climate
In these climates every month averages warmer than 64° F (18° C) and rain is plentiful. All three tropical sub-zones show up on Maui, on the windward slopes that catch the trade winds first, sorted by how the rain falls across the year.
Continuously wet
No real dry season. Rain falls all year. This is the windward rainforest on the northeast faces of both mountains. Color on the map
Where to find it on Maui: the windward slopes above Hāna and the road out to them, and the West Maui summit of Puʻu Kukui at 5,788 feet, one of the wettest places on earth.
Elevation: mostly 41 to 1,572 ft.
The Road to Hāna is a 64.4-mile stretch of Hawaii Routes 36 and 360 connecting Kahului to the town of Hāna in east Maui. Image: Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) / Tommy Lundberg.
Monsoon
A short dry season, but enough rain the rest of the year to keep the ground wet. It shows up as a thin band on the windward slopes, between the rainforest and the drier country below. Color on the map
Where to find it on Maui: the upper windward slopes above Haʻikū and the wetter stretches of the Hāna Highway, where most of Maui’s roadside waterfalls pour off the slopes.
Elevation: mostly 113 to 1,686 ft.
The Pools of ʻOheʻo in ʻOheʻo Gulch are tiered pools fed by waterfalls. Photo by Tamara Bravo on Unsplash
Dry
A clear dry season, here in the summer. This is the transition belt where the land dries out as it drops from the wet summits toward the leeward coast. Color on the map
Where to find it on Maui: the mid and lower leeward slopes of both mountains, and the edges of the central isthmus around Kahului.
Elevation: mostly 30 to 1,739 ft.
Dry (arid and semi-arid) climate
In this climate the yearly evaporation outpaces the rainfall. Maui reaches the semi-arid steppe but never crosses into true desert.
Dry semi-arid (steppe)
A dry grassland climate, drier than the tropics but wetter than desert. On Maui it lines the leeward coasts that sit in the mountains’ rain shadow. Color on the map
Where to find it on Maui: the leeward beaches from Kīhei and Wailea in the south up to the Kāʻanapali and Lāhainā coast in the west, plus the whole of Kahoʻolawe, which sits deep in the rain shadow.
Elevation: mostly 0 to 1,137 ft.
Kāʻanapali beach draws snorkelers and cliff divers along its 3-mile shoreline. Credit: Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) / Tor Johnson
Temperate climate
The coldest month averages between 27° F (-3° C) and 64° F (18° C), and the warmest month is above 50° F (10° C). Two sub-zones appear on Maui.
Summer dry
At least three times as much rain in the wettest winter month as in the driest summer month. Our map splits it by elevation into a warm version lower down and a cool version higher up. Both are a single Köppen zone. Color for the warm version. Color for the cool version
Where to find it on Maui: upcountry Kula and Makawao for the warm version, and the higher ground toward Polipoli, where nights drop into the 40s, for the cool one.
Elevation: mostly 2,045 to 8,232 ft.
Along the streets of Makawao (Upcountry Maui). Image credit: Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) / Tor Johnson
Continuously wet
At least 30 mm of rain in the driest month, with a smaller swing between wet and dry than the summer-dry zone. These are the greener mid-elevation windward slopes. Color on the map
Where to find it on Maui: the mid-elevation windward slopes around Makawao and upper Haʻikū.
Elevation: mostly 1,756 to 6,547 ft.
Polar climate
Polar climates average below 50° F (10° C) every month of the year. One sub-zone reaches Maui.
Polar tundra
The ground stays frozen much of the year, with the warmest month between 32° F (0° C) and 50° F (10° C). On Maui this is the summit zone. Color on the map
Where to find it on Maui: the summit of Haleakalā, where sunrise crowds gather in the cold. The peak tops out at 10,023 feet and runs roughly 30° F colder than the coast below it. Before dawn it drops below freezing, and it has seen snow. Maui and the Big Island are the only Hawaiian islands that reach this zone.
Elevation: mostly 8,924 to 9,770 ft.
Panorama of the Haleakalā summit crater. Image credit: Anita Gould, source.
Watch Maui’s climate zones move through the year
A Köppen zone is worked out from a full year of weather at once, which is why no single month has a zone of its own. The loop below borrows the ingredients instead: it takes the monthly warmth and rainfall behind the map above and classifies each month by itself, so you can watch the boundaries wander as the seasons turn.
Maui County through the year: a dry zone opens across the central isthmus and the leeward coasts each summer. Data: Giambelluca et al. (2013, 2014), 250 m grid. Map by Love Big Island.
Watch the leeward side. Through the wet winter, most of Maui County reads as one green tropical band, with only a cool cap on Haleakalā’s summit. Come summer, a dry zone opens across the central isthmus behind Kīhei, along the West Maui lee, and over Lānaʻi, and little Kahoʻolawe turns arid almost end to end. By late fall the rain returns and the green closes back over it. The summit stays cool all year, and the coast below it stays tropical year round.
The numbers behind each frame come from the University of Hawaiʻi atlas: rainfall against temperature draws the wet and dry line, temperature alone draws the warm and cool bands. These are long-term averages, not this year’s weather.
How we counted the zones
The count of 7 sub-zones on Maui uses the most common form of the Köppen classification, the same one the Big Island article uses. Köppen is a 3-tier system: 5 main climates in the first tier, splitting into 13 sub-zones in the second, and into 28 or 30 finer groups in the third. When we say Maui has 7 of the world’s 13, we mean the second tier.
The map carries 8 labels because we split one zone in two for readers: temperate summer-dry is drawn as a warm version and a cool version by elevation. Collapse that pair and you are left with 7 distinct Köppen zones. The same kind of split is why the Big Island map shows 10 labels for its 8 zones.
Our zones are computed from the University of Hawaiʻi Rainfall Atlas (Giambelluca et al. 2013) and Evapotranspiration Atlas (Giambelluca et al. 2014) at 250 m resolution. We feed the monthly rainfall and temperature for every 250 m pixel through the standard Köppen decision rules set out by Peel, Finlayson, and McMahon (2007): the same thresholds that separate an Af from an Am, or a steppe from a desert, applied the same way everywhere.
Explore the data yourself: the UH Hawaiʻi Climate Data Portal publishes interactive climate maps, live readings from the Hawaiʻi Mesonet station network (live data), and monthly climate summaries.
That resolution is fine enough to catch a strip of steppe along the Lāhainā coast, or the tundra cap on Haleakalā, that a coarser map would smooth away.
The base period is 1978 to 2007. Climate zones are built on 30-year normals, so they barely shift between one recent period and the next.
The elevation bands come from the same 250 m grid, sampled against a public terrain model: each one is the range the middle 90 percent of that zone’s pixels fall in. They describe where a zone mostly sits rather than a hard line, because the zones interleave windward and leeward and neither side changes at the same height.