Living in a Tropical Country Like the Philippines – As a Virtual Assistant or as an Employer for Vacations

by Jomvie
(Full-time VA from the Philippines)

We’ve been talking about how the weather affects our daily lives in the Philippines, especially online workers like me. I will give you a quick background about our climate and when is the best time to come and visit the Philippines for an “R and R”.

You might be puzzled from my recent posts if you are clueless about how the season work in our country. So, let’s start talking about our two seasons:

1. Dry/Sunny season
2. Wet/Rainy season

Since we live near the equator, our climate is categorized as tropical and is divided into four types. But, let’s not complicate it so much and stick to our two seasons—the simpler the better. 🙂

I will start with our Dry Season which begins in the months of December to May.

But it does not mean that from December to May, there’s no rainfall. I will show you an overview below in a table for a better understanding.

Next, the Rainy Season which starts from June to November. From my recent post, I mentioned that our weather is very unusual lately.

The month of June should be the start of a rainy season. Since we’ve been experiencing the El Nino Phenomenon that’s getting worse year after year—rainfall didn’t show up recently and we’re experiencing hot and humid weather.

This is how the months ideally fall for our seasons in the Philippines:

You might be wondering what that “DRY but cool and hot” season means? That is the cool air from the winter monsoon—that’s the literal “Christmas air”.

And if that table says, “it’s hot and DRY” these are the months where we suffer from four-hour rotational brownouts. In some places in the Mindanao island—six hours. These are summer months accompanied by the El Nino Phenomenon.

And when it says, “Rainy-RAINY”, these are the months where storms start to strike our neighboring island (Luzon and Visayas).

I think you can picture now or visualize what I have been talking about from my recent posts. And supposedly, rotating brownouts should have ended last May. However, due to the unexpected occurrence of the long weeks of El Nino (this means no RAIN for weeks and weeks), we can’t complain but just have to wait until it’s okay.

The start of a cool and rainy night

Recently, these past few days for three consecutive nights, we are now experiencing a cooler nights and mornings since rain has arrived. And I am so glad that I can work just fine and my brain can function pretty okay with the cooler surroundings. I just hope everyone across the country is doing fine with this transition—because I am 😀

I’m no raining man—just an ordinary person

Every time there’s a storm coming in the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR). They are named in accordance of the English alphabet. And we start to name these storms from the month of January until December.

Sometimes in a month, we will experience 3 to 4 storms. Naming them is as easy as remembering them since we will just follow the alphabet. Last year, we reached Z and the name of the storm was Zorayda.

(I am sounding like a weather forecaster now, but you can always double-check for a second opinion.)

Please do jump in on the comment box, I am open for comments and suggestions 🙂