Either you're watching it or you've heard about it: Love Island is dominating pop culture right now.

You can binge a whole season of Love Island — six new episodes a week — and never once watch the cast get rained on. That's not luck. It's a mountain, a volcano and a quirk of the tropics doing the producers a very big favor.

The show of the summer isn't filmed in summer at all. While you're sweating through July, the Love Island villa is soaking up the middle of winter — and there's a good reason the cast is still in bathing suits.

Dr. Marshall Shepherd, atmospheric scientist and former American Meteorological Society president, is here to explain the science behind why it's filmed in Fiji.

A rain shadow

“The star of the show is not the rain, or it's not lightning, or a tropical cyclone; it is the interesting interactions of the couples and the people on Love Island,” Shepherd said. “So you want to take the weather out of it as much as possible.”

So, why doesn't it rain on Love Island? That’s where the natural phenomenon of a rain shadow comes into play.

Essentially, you have two sides of a mountain: the windward side, facing the incoming wind, and the leeward side, where the wind is mostly blocked.

On the windward side, that's where atmospheric lift occurs as water vapor condenses to form clouds and you’ll often get rainfall. The other side is protected from this weather, in the rain shadow zone. Filming in this area is almost certainly a strategic decision, ensuring the weather is as clear and sunny as possible.

The Ring of Fire

In the case of Fiji, when we say “mountain,” we’re actually talking about a volcano. 

“If I were a producer and I'm filming something called Love Island, I'd want a very telegenic setting in terms of islands and sun and waves and lush vegetation, and you certainly have all of that in Fiji,” Shepherd said.

Fiji is in a part of the Pacific Ocean called the Ring of Fire. A volcanic archipelago, Fiji sits among the most remote island chains in the world. The islands exist because of those volcanoes, Shepherd explains, as they were formed by volcanoes rising from the seafloor, driven by shifting tectonic plates.

“So I know that sounds ominous to someone who may be reading, but keep in mind that if you live in Seattle, you're staring at a volcano every day when you look at Mount Rainier,” Shepherd said. “Volcanoes are part of our landscapes, but they're not always these violent erupting things like people have in their minds.”

Plot twist: the show of the summer is actually filmed in winter

Wait, but I thought Love Island was filmed live? Don’t you get to vote on the events of episodes happening the next day? And it’s definitely summer right now.

If that was you, there goes the Northern Hemisphere mind at work. In the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are flipped, so while July is the peak of our summer, it’s technically the height of winter there. 

Luckily, the temperatures in Fiji are warm and agreeable in the winter, with an average of 73 degrees Fahrenheit in July, whereas it’s around 80 degrees Fahrenheit in January, their summer.

And in the tropics, more energy arrives from the sun than escapes back to space — that’s called a positive radiation balance. That's why tropical regions stay warm year-round, no matter the season.

“So, when you're watching Love Island, and you're seeing them frolicking around in bathing suits, it's still warm enough for bathing suits there, but it's not roasting hot like you might think,” Shepherd says.

Cyclone season

Fiji sits in a region where tropical systems are very possible. But fortunately, winter in the Southern Hemisphere is the off-season, making it another reason to choose that location and timing for filming, Shepherd notes.

Reminder: Tropical systems are named depending on where they form.

• Cyclones: Form over the South Pacific and Indian Ocean
• Hurricanes: Form over the North Atlantic, the central North Pacific and the eastern North Pacific
• Typhoons: Form over the Northwest Pacific

La Niña or El Niño?

The South Pacific Convergence Zone adds another layer of complexity. It’s a band of clouds, showers and thunderstorms stretching across the South Pacific where trade winds meet and converge.

Because of this, if it’s a La Niña or El Niño year, this can also influence cyclone activity in the Fiji region. 

El Niño is a climate pattern that results in a more favorable, calm year in that area. La Niña brings cooler-than-usual Pacific waters, which pull the South Pacific Convergence Zone southwest toward Fiji, bringing wetter, stormier conditions.

Regardless of the climate of the Fiji Islands, the islanders in the villa are bound to bring sparks and storms during their sun-soaked, drama-filled stay.