Tongariki Sunrise Today

The strip above gives the next sunrise at Ahu Tongariki in island time and the forecast cloud cover for that hour, and turns them into one word: CLEAR SKY, MIXED SKY or CLOUDED OUT. Sunrise there falls between about 7:15 and 8:30 AM depending on the month (7:18 AM on November 15, 2026, by timeanddate.com), so the sunrise tours leave Hanga Roa between 6:00 and 6:30 AM. If the strip says clear or mixed for your morning, Maori Tour Rapa Nui’s small-group sunrise starts at 6:00 AM from US$80 per adult (checked November 2026), and you can cancel it for free up to 24 hours before if the forecast turns.

How the verdict works

The strip reads two numbers each time the page loads.

• Sunrise time. The next sunrise for Ahu Tongariki, in island time, from the Open-Meteo forecast service. It is an astronomical calculation, and it agrees to the minute with timeanddate.com’s time for Hanga Roa (7:18 AM on November 15, 2026 in both). Once today’s sunrise has passed, the strip moves on to tomorrow’s.
• Cloud at sunrise. The forecast total cloud cover, in percent, for the hour that contains that sunrise, from the same service. It is a weather model’s forecast for a grid square over the east of the island, not a camera at the site.

The verdict word comes from the cloud figure:

The two cuts are set from history, not guessed. Over the ten years 2016 to 2025, in the ERA5 weather reanalysis for the same spot, 33% of mornings had 35% cloud or less in the sunrise hour and 31% had more than 85%. Between mid-October and the end of December the middle third ran from 37% to 87%. So CLEAR SKY is roughly a better-than-usual morning and CLOUDED OUT a worse-than-usual one, with everything between called mixed. If the page cannot reach the forecast, the strip stays on CHECK FIRST and shows no numbers.

A forecast a day or two out is still a forecast. The tours run whatever the sky does: a guest on Pukao Moai Tours Rapa Nui's private sunrise wrote on May 16, 2026 that the cloud hid the sunrise and that the guide cannot control the weather. What the strip helps with is timing your booking: the GetYourGuide sunrise tours on this site can be cancelled for free up to 24 hours before, so book for the morning you want and look again the day before.

Tongariki sunrise times, November to January

timeanddate.com, Hanga Roa, island time, checked November 15, 2026. Tongariki is on the same clock.

The latest sunrises of the year come in late March and early April, around 8:18 to 8:27 AM, just before the clocks go back on April 3, 2027. The best months for the Tongariki sunrise has the full year, with the cloud odds for each month.

Photographing the Tongariki sunrise

A few things from the people who have done it, and from the park’s rules:

• Arrive before first light. A guest on Maori Tour Rapa Nui's sunrise on August 6, 2026 (four stars, in Japanese) wrote that arriving in the dark meant they could enjoy the stars before watching the sky change color, cloud and all.
• Step back and up. An Italian guest on Kapua Tours & Experience's private sunrise (October 31, 2025) suggested standing a little away from the moai, on raised ground to the right of the site, for the photographs.
• Ask the guide. Reviewers on several of these tours mention guides who showed them where to stand: “showed us all the good spots to take photos of the sunrise” (Kapua Tours & Experience, January 14, 2026); “Toto’s tips for photos at the sunrise at Tongariki were brilliant” (RAPA NUI DREAM, October 30, 2026).
• Look behind the platform too. On Pukao Moai Tours Rapa Nui's sunrise and quarry morning, a guest on September 27, 2026 was taken round the back of the platform and saw the full moon setting in front of the moai.
• Keep to the rules. Ma’u Henua’s park rules: observe the moai and the platform from the permitted distance without touching them, walk only on marked trails, no drones without authorization, and no commercial filming or photography without a permit (checked November 15, 2026).
• Dress for it. Warm layers and a windbreaker: it is usually cold and windy by the sea before sunrise, and on Miru Ariki's sunrise you enter the site in complete darkness, so a flashlight or headlamp helps.

Pick the morning, then the tour

Prices, ratings and review counts from the listings (checked November 2026), regular prices for one adult unless stated. The park ticket is not included on any of the three; it is CLP 95,000 for a foreign adult (Ma’u Henua, checked November 15, 2026). Treat them as a guide, not a quote: the calendar shows the price for your date and group before you pay.

When the strip shows CLOUDED OUT several days running, the best months page shows which months tend to have clearer mornings, and the homepage compares every sunrise tour side by side.