Best Time to Visit Madrid

The short answer: September, then early June

Madrid has two clear windows, and they sit either side of the summer. Both are warm, dry and sunny; the difference is that September comes after the worst of the heat and June comes just before it.

1. September averages a 26.4°C high, a 15.4°C low and 22 mm of rain across the month (AEMET, Madrid Retiro, 1981-2010 normals).
2. September has only 3.3 days with measurable rain, and 259 hours of sunshine.
3. June averages a 28.2°C high, 21 mm of rain and 315 hours of sunshine.
4. The second half of June already runs into July heat; the first two weeks are the part worth booking.
5. Nights in both months fall to 15-16°C, which is what makes the long Madrid evenings outdoors comfortable.

Of the two, September is the safer choice. By the last week of June, July is arriving early more often than not, while the first half of September is reliably past the peak.

Madrid month by month, with the numbers

Every figure below is the 1981-2010 climate normal for the Retiro station in central Madrid, published by AEMET, the Spanish state meteorological agency. Sunshine for October is not published for this station, so it is left blank rather than estimated.

Madrid receives only 421 mm of rain a year, far less than Lisbon or Barcelona. What matters is when it falls: October, November, December and May are the four wettest months, and July and August are almost completely dry.

May is wetter than spring’s reputation

Most guides put Madrid’s best season in spring, often as a single stretch from February to May. The temperatures support that. The rainfall does not, and May is the month where the gap is widest.

1. May averages 50 mm of rain, making it the fourth-wettest month of the Madrid year.
2. May has 7.3 days with measurable rain — more than any other month.
3. May also averages 2.9 thunderstorm days, the highest of the year, just ahead of June at 2.8.
4. April is only slightly better, at 45 mm and 6.7 rainy days.
5. March is the dry exception of the spring, at 25 mm and 4.1 rainy days, but its 16.3°C mean high is still jacket weather in the evenings.

None of this makes spring a bad time to come. It makes it a season where the afternoon plan needs an indoor fallback, and Madrid has three of the best art museums in Europe within a fifteen-minute walk of each other.

July and August: the heat is real, and so is the emptying

Madrid sits on the central plateau, far from any sea, and its summers are hotter than on the coast. The dry air makes the heat bearable in the shade and punishing in the open squares.

1. July averages a 32.1°C high and August 31.3°C — the two hottest months of the year.
2. July is also the sunniest, at 355 hours, and among the driest, at 12 mm of rain.
3. Relative humidity in July averages 38%, the lowest of the year: shade and water work, and the evenings cool quickly.
4. Nights stay near 19°C in both months, so a room without air conditioning is a genuine problem.
5. August is when much of the city goes on holiday, so a share of the independent restaurants and shops close for part of the month.

Madrid in summer works if you live on the local clock: museums in the morning, a long lunch from about 2pm, the hottest hours indoors, and the city again from about 8pm, when the terraces fill.

Winter in Madrid is cold, and bright

The same plateau that makes summer hot makes winter cold. Madrid is not a winter-sun destination, but it is a dry, bright one, and the museums are at their quietest.

1. January averages a 9.8°C high and a 2.7°C low — colder than Lisbon, Barcelona or Mallorca.
2. The Retiro station records 15.7 frost days a year, most of them between December and February.
3. Snow falls on 3.6 days a year on average, usually lightly.
4. January is still one of the drier months, at 33 mm, with 149 hours of sunshine.
5. December is the darkest month, at 124 hours of sunshine and 51 mm of rain.

Best time for each kind of Madrid trip

The right month depends on what the trip is for. These are the windows the AEMET numbers support, not a general ranking.

1. Walking the city all day: September, at 26.4°C with 3.3 rainy days, or the first half of June.
2. Museums first: January to March, when the galleries are quietest and the weather gives you no reason to be outside.
3. Terraces and late nights: June and September, when nights fall to 15-16°C and it is warm enough to sit out until late.
4. Day trip to Toledo or Segovia: September or March, when the walking on hilly old streets is comfortable and the weather dry.
5. Lowest prices: January and February, which are cold but among the driest months of the year.
6. Avoiding rain: July and August, at 12 mm and 10 mm — if you can live with 31-32°C afternoons.

What the calendar does to Madrid

Weather sets half of the answer; the Spanish calendar sets the other half. Madrid is a capital and a business city, so its busy weeks are not only the holiday ones.

1. August is the national holiday month, and part of the city closes while its residents are away.
2. Easter week moves between late March and late April and fills the centre with both Spanish and international visitors.
3. Large trade fairs and congresses can fill the hotels on weekdays in any season, including winter.
4. The Christmas period, from mid-December to 6 January, is busy in the centre despite the cold.
5. From September the business calendar returns, and weekday demand from trade fairs and congresses comes back with it.

If your dates are flexible, compare a hotel price for a weekday and a weekend night in the same week before booking — in a business capital the cheaper night is not always the one you expect.