Can you skydive in the rain or through cloud over Cairns

Skydive Australia, which runs the jump this site books, is plain about it. Heavy rain, strong wind or a low, thick layer of cloud mean the loads are cancelled and moved to another day unless the weather improves; scattered cloud or a passing shower can usually be jumped through or around without spoiling anything.¹ So the honest answer to can you skydive in the rain is: not in real rain, and sometimes on a showery day.

The operator also lists what can stretch a jump day even when it goes ahead: wind, cloud, rain, thermal turbulence and air traffic.⁵ That is why your booking shows a check-in time and not a jump time, and why the operator wants you to treat the jump as taking the whole day.⁶ In Cairns it reckons many guests are through in an hour and a half, and still wants half a day kept free, because the weather sets the schedule.⁷

None of this is the instructor being cautious for the sake of it. The weather call protects the aircraft, the canopy ride and the landing, and a delayed jump in clear air beats a rushed one in a squall every time. The rest of this page explains what cloud means under Australian rules, how a weather hold runs, and what happens to your money.

Only where a drop zone holds an approval. CASA, the national aviation regulator, says the rules under Part 105 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations permit parachutists to enter cloud during a descent at drop zones where a Part 105 approved self-administering organisation has approved it.² Part 105 sets out the operational rules for aircraft and parachute descents, and its Manual of Standards commenced on 2 December 2023.^15,16

CASA's advisory circular on the subject defines a cloud descent broadly. It covers any descent that takes the parachutist into cloud, and also any descent during which the jumper cannot see the drop zone clearly the whole way down.¹⁷ The same document says each drop zone must seek its own approval for cloud descents, and that satellite navigation is now widely used to choose the exit point in all conditions, rather than relying only on a visual check.¹⁸

In Australia the rules are applied through self-administration: CASA sets the regulations, and approved organisations apply and enforce them.¹⁹ For parachuting the Australian Parachute Federation administers the regulations for most activities.²⁰ Whether a particular Cairns or Mission Beach jump may pass through cloud on a given day is therefore a question for the drop zone, and on a tandem it is the instructor who makes the call, not you.

Tourism Australia divides the Tropical North Queensland year into a wet and a dry season: wet from November to April, dry from May to October.²⁷ The wet months, it says, bring heavy rain and tropical storms to Cairns.²⁸ The dry months bring little rain and plenty of sunshine, and they draw the most visitors.²⁹

The station averages show the gap. February brings an average 480 mm of rain, falling on 14 days that each reach 2.5 mm, against only 27 mm on 3 such days in August.^13,13 January averages 13 wet days and March 12, against 3 days in September.^13,13,13 These readings come from the Cairns Post Office for rain and the airport for temperature, on the ground and not at jump altitude.¹³

A wet-season jump is still possible. Showers in the tropics often come and go, and a morning slot can slip between them. But if your dates are flexible and the skydive is the point of the trip, the dry months give you far more margin, and the best-time page on this site compares the months in detail.