so, is cairns still awesome (diving etc.) in august or is it better to wait until march

Hihi: August is a great time to go, better than March I would say, which is at the tail end of the Wet Season.

hiho - March is generally wetter and warmer and excluding slight possibility of cyclone in area is fine for diving. August is usually sunny, dry and often very windy and can be cold at night. I had dinner in Palm Cove last night - tourists everywhere, most of them found it too cool to eat outside, and this is only June. The two very best months in the North are October and November.

thanks for the replies so far- so just want to put it another way- if i had to choose between march and august, what is better- i would like to go august but want to be sure that it won't be a bad idea
thanks again
m

hiho - it won't be a bad idea, August is the busiest month of the year as apart from the usual international visitors we get lots of Australians from "down south" coming up to the tropics escape their much colder winter.

Average daily temperatures for March are 22.6C-30.7C; for August its 16.3C -26.4C. Visibility on reef is slightly less in August than March due to higher winds. Average number of rainy days in March is 18.3 (with most rain falling in afternoon and evening) and 7.7 for August.

Just to translate Pat's temperature into Fahrenheit, Cairns average temps in Aug are 61 to 80 F. On the 3 occassions I've been to Cairns in July-Aug, the weather was gorgeous, though the wind can pick up at times, especially at sea. I would still pick Aug over Mar.