Discover the best time of year, based on historical climate, temperature, and precipitation.
The best weather in Kolkata is from January, February, December. — consistent weather climate
⛈Hot & rainy
| Score | 97 | 96 | 83 | 63 | 47 | 29 | 25 | 25 | 28 | 53 | 95 | 96 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate | Pleasant | Pleasant | Hot & dry | Hot & dry | Hot & rainy | Hot & rainy | Hot & rainy | Hot & rainy | Hot & rainy | Hot & rainy | Pleasant | Pleasant |
| Temperature | 14–25°C | 17–29°C | 22–33°C | 25–35°C | 27–34°C | 27–33°C | 26–31°C | 26–31°C | 26–31°C | 24–31°C | 19–29°C | 15–26°C |
| Feels like | 13–25°C | 18–30°C | 24–36°C | 30–40°C | 32–40°C | 33–40°C | 32–38°C | 32–38°C | 31–38°C | 28–36°C | 21–31°C | 16–26°C |
| Precipitation | 19mm 2 days | 24mm 2 days | 39mm 4 days | 79mm 5 days | 145mm 9 days | 233mm 20 days | 401mm 30 days | 385mm 30 days | 294mm 26 days | 180mm 14 days | 34mm 2 days | 31mm 2 days |
| Sunshine | 9.7h ☀︎ 89% | 10.3h ☀︎ 90% | 10.5h ☀︎ 87% | 10.9h ☀︎ 86% | 10.3h ☀︎ 78% | 6.3h ☀︎ 47% | 4.8h ☀︎ 36% | 4.7h ☀︎ 36% | 5.5h ☀︎ 45% | 9.1h ☀︎ 78% | 9.6h ☀︎ 87% | 9.1h ☀︎ 85% |
| Wind | N · 11 km/h | NW · 12 km/h | SW · 14 km/h | S · 18 km/h | S · 19 km/h | S · 18 km/h | S · 17 km/h | S · 16 km/h | S · 15 km/h | N · 12 km/h | N · 10 km/h | N · 11 km/h |
| Humidity (%) | 72% | 68% | 68% | 71% | 77% | 82% | 86% | 87% | 87% | 83% | 74% | 73% |
| Day length | 10.9h | 11.4h | 12.0h | 12.7h | 13.2h | 13.5h | 13.4h | 12.9h | 12.3h | 11.6h | 11.1h | 10.8h |
Kolkata's defining festival transforms the city with thousands of elaborately decorated pandals honoring the goddess Dur…
One of the largest book fairs in the world turns the fairgrounds into a sprawling city of publisher stalls, readings and…
Kolkata celebrates the Bengali New Year with processions, cultural performances and crowded sweet shops and markets, esp…
Kolkata's Park Street lights up with festive decorations, food stalls and a carnival atmosphere unusual for an Indian ci…
Kolkata's golden rule is simple: winter is as glorious as promised, but while November and December draw peak holiday masses, January and February deliver that same dry, crisp perfection with noticeably more room to breathe.
Spilling along the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, Kolkata carries the weight of an empire and the heart of Bengal. It is a city defined by intellectual verve, fading neoclassical grandeur, yellow ambassador cabs, and long afternoon arguments over tea. But the physical experience of moving through it depends entirely on the calendar. For much of the year, the tropical atmosphere is heavy and unforgiving, turning the streets into steam baths or waterlogged canals. Yet when the northern winds drop down in late autumn, the city unlocks completely, transforming into one of the most delightful, walkable metropolitan landscapes in South Asia.
Winter in Kolkata is not an exaggeration; it is a civic revival. Beginning in November, the oppressive coastal humidity collapses, replaced by cool mornings, pleasant daytime breezes, and crisp evenings that actually demand a light woolen shawl. The sprawling green lawns of the Maidan fill with morning walkers, cricket games, and families lounging under soft golden sunlight. In December, the colonial-era architecture along Park Street glows under an electric canopy of festive lights, filling the district with street food hawkers, carolers, and a buoyant carnival energy that runs straight through New Year's Eve.
While November and December see the year's heaviest tourist crush, the weather remains at its absolute zenith through January and February. January is the true sweet spot: daytime temperatures linger around a mild 25 degrees, the air is dry, and crowds ease off noticeably from their holiday peak. This is prime walking weather. You can drift past the storied ramparts of Fort William or wander through book-lined alleys without breaking into an immediate sweat.
It is also the intellectual high season. Between late January and early February, the International Kolkata Book Fair draws legions of bibliophiles to a pop-up metropolis of publisher stalls, outdoor stages, and smoky food pavilions. Experiencing the fair on a clear, brisk afternoon, browsing poetry and political essays among crowds clutching paper cups of hot tea, shows the cultural capital at its absolute best.
By March, the winter truce begins to dissolve. The sun climbs higher, and by April and May, the city slides into punishing pre-monsoon heat. Afternoon temperatures regularly surge past 35 degrees, but high humidity pushes the apparent temperature past 40 degrees, turning every journey outside an air-conditioned room into a drenching test of stamina. The asphalt radiates heat, and the dense traffic jams trap exhaust and humidity in narrow lanes.
April brings Poila Boishakh, the Bengali New Year, which briefly snaps the city out of its heat-induced lethargy. Celebrations spill through the lanes of North Kolkata and around College Street, where shopkeepers dust off their account ledgers for the Haal Khata ceremony and sweet shops overflow with customers buying sandesh and rosogolla. If you are here, celebrate early in the morning or well after dusk. By midday, the relentless sun forces the entire city indoors behind drawn curtains.
May is particularly brutal because it pairs scorching, sticky days with a paradoxical surge in visitors. Thunderstorms occasionally lash the Hooghly River at twilight—violent squalls that knock over roadside stalls and disrupt traffic before leaving the air even more humid than before. Unless your visit is strictly anchored to air-conditioned heritage buildings, avoid this stretch.
The monsoon formally breaks in June, plunging Kolkata into four months of relentless gray skies, torrential downpours, and stagnant tropical warmth. The city receives the bulk of its annual rainfall in this window, with July and August seeing staggering volumes of water that regularly overwhelm the old drainage networks. Streets turn into shallow rivers, taxis refuse fares across flooded intersections, and the air stays locked in a permanent, sodden steam.
Curiously, visitor numbers remain stubbornly elevated through June and August despite the dreadful conditions underfoot. Travelers who arrive expecting romantic, moody downpours usually find themselves trapped by sudden cloudbursts that derail entire itineraries within minutes. The sky hangs low and dense, offering only a few brief hours of muffled sunshine each day.
September acts as a weary transition. The heaviest rains begin to recede into intermittent showers, but the humidity remains suffocating. Walking more than a couple of blocks leaves your clothes clinging to your skin, and the damp air makes outdoor exploration exhausting. The city's famous street life retreats beneath plastic tarpaulins, waiting for the relief of autumn.
October is the pivot of the Bengali calendar, dominated entirely by Durga Puja. For five days, the city throws all practical routines out the window. Neighborhoods transform into a vast, illuminated public art exhibition, anchored by thousands of temporary pandals—elaborate thematic temples housing idols of the goddess Durga, flanked by immense sound systems and food stalls serving hot rolls and biryani.
The weather in October is an uneasy mix. The monsoon is retreating, but the humidity has not yet broken into winter freshness, meaning the millions who flood the streets for all-night pandal-hopping do so in warm, sticky air. Navigating the city during Puja requires abandoning all hope of punctuality or personal space; main arteries grind to a halt, and metro platforms heave with revelers.
If you come in October, come solely to immerse yourself in this cultural spectacle. If your goal is quiet architectural walking tours and museum visits, the chaos and late-monsoon heat will overwhelm you. For those seeking the city at its easiest and most elegant, hold out for the cool dry days just around the corner.