Month by month
Ruaha in May
May is the hinge month, the point where the thirty-year weather record swings from rainy to essentially dry within a single page of the calendar, while the camp calendar lags a few weeks behind it.
If you only want the answer
May's weather has effectively already turned dry, with rain collapsing to just 5 mm, but most of Ruaha's seasonal camps are still closed or only just reopening. Anchor a May trip on the year-round properties and treat anything else as a bonus, not a certainty.
A weather flip the camps haven't caught up with
The thirty-year average shows May's rain dropping to just 5 mm across a single day, down from April's 45 mm, a collapse that marks the real end of the wet season regardless of what the calendar says about a season technically running through May. Days hold at 28.2°C and nights start to bite, down to 17.5°C, the first hint of the cold mornings that define June and July. The Great Ruaha has already fallen from a river to a series of connected stretches, the opening move in the shrink that will define the whole dry season ahead.
That gap between weather and infrastructure is May's defining feature. The bush is drying out and tracks are firming up well before most operators have restaffed their camps, which means the park is often more visitable than the accommodation options suggest.
What you can actually book
Ruaha River Lodge, Mwagusi and the TANAPA bandas run through May without interruption, and the outside-gate lodges are unaffected as always. Several interior camps list June as their reopening month, which in practice can mean anywhere from the first to the last week, since a camp reopens once it has finished refurbishment and restaffing, not on a fixed calendar date. Call ahead rather than book off a season label; a camp that says "June" might already be ready for a late-May guest, or might not be ready until mid-June.
Tsetse activity is beginning to pick up as the bush dries, though it's still well short of the levels you'll meet by August in the western miombo.
The honest booking take
There's no pressure to book far ahead for May: even the camps that are open see little demand this early in the dry season. The smarter move is flexibility, holding a firm reservation at one of the year-round anchors and asking your agent to slot in a reopening camp if one confirms its dates in time.