Top picks from this guide
#1
December to February
BMKG's outlook for December 2025 to January 2026 put Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara at 300-500 mm a month, with a category above 500 mm for January 2026. That is a forecast, not a verified measurement. River-fed falls run loud and turbid in this window; spring-fed ones keep their colour.
#2
March
BBMKG Wilayah III has the dry season starting in March 2026 in these zones, ahead of the rest of Bali. They cross into the dry season first, so the change shows in the east and on Nusa Penida rather than in the waterfall belt.
#3
April
Nationally BMKG had 114 climate zones entering the dry season in April 2026. On Bali this is the month most zones switch. River-fed falls stop turning brown every few days, which is what actually changes the photograph.
#4
May to June
BMKG counted 184 zones starting the dry season in May 2026 and 163 in June 2026 across the country. Bali's north and centre, which is where the tall falls are, sit in the May group rather than the March one.
#5
July to August
All of Bali was in dry season by 11 July 2026. BMKG's June update put 369 climate zones, 48.84% of all zones in the country, at the dry-season peak in August 2026. Flow drops in this window; the northern cascades run on groundwater and hold their level.
#6
September
Rain began early on Tuesday 9 September 2025 and by 13 September 2025 BPBD Provinsi Bali had logged 356 disaster points, 205 of them floods, 17 dead and 5 missing. On paper this is the dry season, which is exactly why the sequence is worth knowing.
#7
October to November
We have no monthly rainfall normals for Bali stations that we would print. The only set we trust is the annual regency table for 2016. The one climate signal in our sources is a weak La Nina that ran from October 2025 and ended in February 2026.
#8
Any month, north Bali
Buleleng is the driest regency at 1,702 mm a year and still holds 125 of Bali's 391 river basins and 229 springs at 2,782.69 l/s. Groundwater, not last week's rain, is what keeps the northern cascades running through August.
Rain is not evenly spread across the island
Almost every rainfall figure quoted about Bali traces back to one table. Dinas PU Provinsi Bali's 2016 hydrology volume, table 4.5, gives an island average of 2,157 mm a year and then splits it by regency: Tabanan 2,466 mm at the top, Bangli 2,335, Badung 2,275, Gianyar 2,250, Karangasem 2,208, Denpasar 2,125, Jembrana 2,056, Klungkung 2,000, and Buleleng 1,702 at the bottom.
Be careful with the line that the north is thirty percent drier. Buleleng is 31% below Tabanan and 21% below the island average. Those are two different comparisons, and the percentage only means something once you name the pair.
The ridge running along the island decides the direction of everything. The same source states that Bali's river systems flow from north to south in the southern half of the island and from south to north in the northern half. There are 391 river basins in total: Buleleng holds 125 of them, Karangasem 73, Nusa Penida 60 on its own alongside Klungkung's 10, Tabanan 36, Badung 34, Gianyar 9, Bangli 9, Denpasar 7.
So the regency with the least rain carries the largest share of the river network: Buleleng holds 125 of the 391 basins. Rainfall alone does not explain why a north Bali fall can be clear on a week when a Tabanan or Bangli one is brown. That explanation is groundwater, and it is the next section.
Springs are why the north keeps water
BWS Bali Penida's 2015 inventory, table 4.4, counts springs and their discharge by regency: Bangli 447 springs at 3,632.74 l/s, Buleleng 229 at 2,782.69, Karangasem 215 at 12,838.15, which is the largest discharge on the island, Tabanan 188 at 6,570.88, Jembrana 129 at 395.30, Gianyar 106 at 3,280.36, Klungkung 42, Badung 38, and Denpasar with none. The total comes to 32,271.82 l/s.
One caveat has to travel with those numbers. The same document contradicts itself: its text says 1,934 springs while its table sums to 1,394. We quote both figures rather than pick the one that reads better, because we cannot tell which is the typo.
The clearest place to see the difference between spring water and river water is Sekumpul, where the left cascade is described as spring-fed and clear all year while the right one draws from the Sekumpul village river and carries brown silt after rain. They sit close enough to appear in the same frame. This description is consistent across many independent travel publications, but we found no official hydrogeological confirmation of it, so treat it as a widely repeated observation rather than a measured fact.
Flow drops in the dry months across the island. What holds up best are the northern cascades, because they run on groundwater rather than on last week's rain, and the spring counts above are the reason. That is the whole seasonal story in the north: less rain, steadier water.
The wet season is January-February, and the peak of the dry season is August
BMKG's forecast of 10 March 2026 had the dry season starting in April 2026 in 114 climate zones, May 2026 in 184 and June 2026 in 163, with the peak of the season in August 2026. The June update sharpened that: 369 climate zones, 48.84% of all zones in the country, at peak in August 2026. The weak La Nina that began in October 2025 ended in February 2026.
For Bali itself, BBMKG Wilayah III splits the island. The dry season starts in March 2026 on Nusa Penida and in southern Gianyar, Klungkung and Karangasem, in April 2026 across most of the island, and in May 2026 in the north and centre. By 11 July 2026 the whole of Bali was in the dry season.
At the other end of the year, BMKG forecast 300-500 mm a month for December 2025 and January 2026 across Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara, with a category above 500 mm a month for January 2026. We are repeating a forecast here, not a verified total, and we have not seen the confirmed monthly measurements. There are no published monthly rainfall normals for Bali stations that we would put in print, which is why this guide works in seasons and dated events rather than in month-by-month millimetres. Our month-by-month guide uses the same caveat.
The deadliest flood of recent years hit in the dry season
Rain started early on Tuesday 9 September 2025. The first disaster report reached BPBD at 02:34 WITA on Wednesday 10 September 2025, from Tabanan. By 12:00 WITA on 13 September 2025, BPBD Provinsi Bali had logged 356 disaster points, 205 of them floods, 17 dead, 5 missing and 149 evacuated, across Denpasar, Tabanan, Badung, Gianyar, Jembrana, Klungkung, Bangli and Karangasem.
The rainfall behind it was not uniform. A BMKG station in Jembrana recorded 385.5 mm over the night of 9 September 2025, more than twice the 150 mm per day extreme-rainfall threshold. Denpasar recorded 188.4 mm in the same event. One station's number is not the island's, and anyone quoting the higher figure as a regional total is stretching it.
The casualty count also grew for three days: 2 dead on 10 September 2025 from BNPB, 9 dead and 2 missing on 11 September 2025 via Mongabay, 17 and 5 on 13 September 2025 from BPBD. If you are reading a live number during an event in Bali, treat it as a floor rather than a total.
For contrast, in the middle of the wet season on 23-24 February 2026, BPBD Bali logged 76 incidents in roughly 18 hours: Denpasar 36, Karangasem 12, Badung 12, Tabanan 5, Gianyar 5, Buleleng 4, Klungkung and Jembrana one each. More than 30 people were evacuated and no deaths were reported. The wetter month produced the smaller event, which is why we do not sell the dry season as the safe one.
What this means at four specific waterfalls
Tukad Cepung sits in Desa Penida Kelod, Tembuku, in Bangli, and is about 15 m high. Entry is a single IDR 30,000, the same for Indonesians and foreigners. The manager, Putra, puts high-season traffic at 350-450 people a day. There are handrails along the stairs, a first-aid kit and insurance on site. The light shaft is where the sources fall apart: the official village site says between 11:00 and 12:00 local time, guidebooks print 09:00-11:00 and 09:30-11:30, and Walk My World states plainly that the window is not strict and reports beams at 08:30. We have not resolved that, and no publication we found names the months when the shaft appears; the site detail is in our Tukad Cepung guide. Because of the timing spread, we only sell Tukad Cepung on a private car with driver at $59 for the car, where you can sit out an hour in the canyon instead of leaving when a group bus leaves.
Gitgit shows the same problem in official form. Two pages published by the same Buleleng administration disagree: Kominfo in 2018 gives 35 m, Disbudpar in 2024 gives 48 m. The route descriptions differ too, 11 km with a 250 m walk on one page against 13.4 km, 29 minutes of driving and a 20-minute walk on the other. Gitgit is a built-in stop on our Lovina sunrise day at $69 for 8 hours and on the North Bali day at $79 for 10-12 hours, which is the only way we think it is worth the distance.
Sekumpul and Nung Nung we would rather you visit without us. Buleleng's Diskominfo estimates Sekumpul at 150 m with a descent of 365 steps, while guidebooks widely print about 80 m and about 500 steps; entry is IDR 15,000 for adults and IDR 5,000 for children, split between Lemukih and Sekumpul villages, with e-ticketing in place. Nung Nung is 50 m with about 500 steep concrete steps, in Desa Pelaga, Petang, Badung, roughly 45 km and 1.5-2 hours from Denpasar; from January 2026 a foreign adult pays IDR 30,000 and a child IDR 20,000, Indonesians IDR 15,000 and IDR 10,000. Detik, on a January 2026 visit, found wet and slippery sections of the staircase. Each of these is a day on its own, we do not run either of them, and we are not going to bolt them onto a route to make a page look fuller.
On safety, on 18 January 2024 the Buleleng tourism office, through Gede Dody Sukma Oktiva Askara, said it was working towards permanent lifeguard cover at every water attraction in the regency and a clean split between the guide role and the rescuer role, citing 120 certified basic-level rescuers. That was a statement of intent, not a rule that came into force, and drownings in Buleleng continued afterwards, at Kebo Iwa on 21 November 2025 and at Tembok Barak on 25-26 April 2026. We found no published wet-weather closure rule for any of the four falls above, which means the decision on a brown, loud day is yours and your driver's. What is fixed rather than announced is small: Sekumpul now runs on e-ticketing, and Tukad Cepung has handrails, a first-aid kit and insurance.
One last seasonal note that runs the other way. High flow is a problem at a waterfall and an advantage on a river, so the months when the catchments are full are the months to put white-water rafting at $25 per person into the plan instead of a long staircase. High flow is also a different thing from a flood day: after a night like 9 September 2025, the river is not a plan.
FAQ
Do Bali waterfalls dry up in the dry season?
No source we checked supports that for any of the falls we checked. Flow drops in the dry months, which is not the same statement. The northern cascades are the most stable because they run on groundwater: BWS Bali Penida counted 229 springs in Buleleng at 2,782.69 l/s in 2015.
Which months have the most water in Bali waterfalls?
BMKG forecast 300-500 mm a month for December 2025 and January 2026 across Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara, with a category above 500 mm for January 2026. That is a forecast rather than a verified total, and more rain does not automatically mean a better day out.
Is the dry season the safe season for waterfalls?
Not automatically. The worst flood of recent years began with rain on 9 September 2025, inside the dry season of that year. By 13 September 2025 BPBD Provinsi Bali had logged 356 disaster points, 205 floods, 17 dead, 5 missing and 149 evacuated across Denpasar, Tabanan, Badung, Gianyar, Jembrana, Klungkung, Bangli and Karangasem.
What time do the light beams appear at Tukad Cepung?
Sources disagree and we have not resolved it. The official village site says between 11:00 and 12:00 local time. Guidebooks print 09:00-11:00 and 09:30-11:30. Walk My World says the window is not strict and reports beams at 08:30. No publication we found names the months.
How tall is Sekumpul and how many steps are there?
Buleleng's official Diskominfo page estimates 150 m and a descent of 365 steps. Guidebooks widely print about 80 m and about 500 steps. The contradiction is unresolved. Entry is IDR 15,000 for adults and IDR 5,000 for children, split between Lemukih and Sekumpul villages, with e-ticketing.
How tall is Gitgit waterfall?
Two official pages from the same Buleleng administration disagree: Kominfo in 2018 says 35 m, Disbudpar in 2024 says 48 m. The access descriptions differ as well, 11 km with a 250 m walk against 13.4 km with 29 minutes of driving and a 20-minute walk.
Are there lifeguards at Bali waterfalls?
On 18 January 2024 the Buleleng tourism office announced it was pushing for permanent lifeguard cover at all water attractions and a split between guide and rescuer roles, citing 120 certified basic-level rescuers. It was an intention, not an adopted rule, and drownings continued at Kebo Iwa on 21 November 2025 and Tembok Barak on 25-26 April 2026.
Buleleng is the driest regency, so are there fewer waterfalls in the north?
Buleleng gets 1,702 mm a year against Tabanan's 2,466 mm and an island average of 2,157 mm, and it still holds 125 of Bali's 391 river basins and 229 springs. Less rain falls there, and more of the water that does arrive comes out of the ground rather than off a hillside.
Recommended Bali tours for this guide
Private Car with Driver in Bali
This is one of the most useful products in Bali because so many plans become easier once transport is flexible. It is perfect for custom sightseeing, shopping days, family pacing, and travelers who already know roughly where they want to go.
- Duration
- Flexible daily use
- Area
- All major Bali regions
- Format
- Private transport service
- Best for
- Travelers who want total route flexibility
From $59 per car No prepayment
View tour
North Bali Tour and Lovina Dolphins
This is one of the fullest Bali day trips on the island, but it pays off with a completely different mood from the south. The route combines sea, mountain air, and scenic temple stops in one professionally paced private experience.
- Duration
- 10-12 hours
- Area
- Lovina and north Bali
- Format
- Private day tour
- Best for
- Travelers chasing a big full-day route
From $79 No prepayment
View tour
Bali White Water Rafting, Ayung River
White water rafting is one of Bali's easiest adventure products to fit into a trip because it feels active without being overly technical. It is especially strong for guests who want something memorable that still works for mixed groups.
- Duration
- 4-6 hours
- Area
- Bali river routes
- Format
- Adventure activity
- Best for
- Families, couples, and active groups
From $25 No prepayment
View tour