Compare holiday weather
Compare holiday weather for any two of our 62 places in the same month: in January, Tenerife averages 22 °C by day against 22 °C in Hurghada, but the Red Sea is 23 °C and the Atlantic 20 °C.
Tenerife in November, daytime high
25 °Cvs 20 °C in Majorca
| Measure | Tenerife | Majorca |
|---|---|---|
| Night low | 18 °C | 12 °C |
| Sea surface | 22 °C | 19 °C |
| Rain in the month | 11 mm | 69 mm |
| Days with 1 mm or more | 1 day | 7 days |
| Daylight | 10 h 42 min | 9 h 54 min |
| October, daytime high | 27 °C | 24 °C |
| December, daytime high | 23 °C | 17 °C |
Averages 1991 to 2020 at Tenerife Sur airport and Palma de Mallorca. A typical month, not a forecast. Method · Majorca month by month.
Independent site: Radif Partners sells no holidays · Data and method
Compare holiday weather: pairs people weigh up
Most holiday choices come down to two places. A family that has been to Tenerife wonders whether Lanzarote would be any warmer; a couple torn between Cyprus and Turkey for October half-term wants to know which is drier; someone booking Christmas sun asks whether Egypt beats the Canaries. The table below sets out eight such pairs for the month in which the question is usually asked. Each figure is a monthly average over 1991 to 2020, computed from the daily records of a named weather station, and the sea is the nearest cell of NOAA's sea surface analysis.
| Month | Places | Daytime high | Sea | Wet days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | Tenerife / Lanzarote | 22 °C / 21 °C | 20 °C / 19 °C | 2 days / 3 days |
| December | Tenerife / Hurghada | 23 °C / 24 °C | 21 °C / 25 °C | 3 days / 0 days |
| June | Majorca / Crete | 27 °C / 28 °C | 22 °C / 23 °C | 2 days / 0 days |
| October | Larnaca and Ayia Napa / Antalya | 28 °C / 27 °C | 25 °C / 25 °C | 2 days / 5 days |
| February | Dubai / Hurghada | 26 °C / 24 °C | 22 °C / 22 °C | 1 day / 0 days |
| August | Phuket / Koh Samui | 31 °C / 32 °C | 30 °C / 29 °C | 19 days / 13 days |
| September | Malta / Corfu | 29 °C / 28 °C | 26 °C / 24 °C | 4 days / 5 days |
| November | Madeira / Cape Verde | 22 °C / 29 °C | 21 °C / 26 °C | no usable record / no usable record |
What the differences mean
A gap of one degree in the daytime high is smaller than the difference between two days of the same week, so treat two places within a degree as equal. A gap of three degrees or more is real and you will feel it. The sea moves more slowly than the air: it lags by about a month behind it in the Mediterranean, which is why October water off Cyprus, 25 °C, is warmer than June water, 24 °C, while the air is cooler. Wet days count the days with at least one millimetre of rain; three or four wet days in a month means a week will usually have one damp day at most, while fifteen or more means rain is part of most days.
Night lows and the gap between day and night
Two places with the same afternoon can feel very different after dark. In December, Hurghada and Tenerife are close by day, 24 °C and 23 °C, but the desert night falls to 13 °C, against 16 °C on the island, where the ocean keeps the air mild. In August, Corfu reaches 33 °C by day yet drops to 21 °C, while Rhodes, a little cooler by day at 30 °C, stays at 25 °C at night. For a holiday with young children or without air conditioning, the night figure can matter more than the day.
Limits of a comparison
Each place is one station. Resorts on the other side of an island, or in the hills, can be warmer, cooler or wetter than the station. Averages also hide the spread from year to year; a cool, wet week can happen in the best month. Where a station did not report on enough days, the table says no usable record rather than inventing a figure. Sunshine hours are not shown: the official climate normals that carry them could not be read for this site. The method page lists every station and rule.