Discover the best time of year, based on historical climate, temperature, and precipitation.
The best weather in Oaxaca City is from January, February, December, but considering flight prices and crowds, the best months to visit are April, May, August. — consistent weather climate
🌦Humid
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Contains affiliate links.
| Score | 99 | 100 | 97 | 94 | 86 | 55 | 68 | 74 | 67 | 84 | 98 | 100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate | Pleasant | Pleasant | Pleasant | Pleasant | Pleasant | Rainy | Humid | Humid | Rainy | Humid | Pleasant | Pleasant |
| Temperature | 11–25°C | 11–28°C | 13–29°C | 15–31°C | 16–30°C | 16–26°C | 14–26°C | 15–26°C | 15–25°C | 14–25°C | 12–26°C | 11–26°C |
| Feels like | 9–24°C | 10–26°C | 12–29°C | 15–31°C | 17–31°C | 16–28°C | 15–28°C | 15–28°C | 16–27°C | 14–26°C | 12–26°C | 10–24°C |
| Precipitation | 3mm 1 days | 2mm 0 days | 17mm 2 days | 19mm 2 days | 57mm 6 days | 168mm 16 days | 114mm 12 days | 145mm 14 days | 174mm 18 days | 93mm 9 days | 8mm 2 days | 2mm 0 days |
| Sunshine | 10.7h ☀︎ 95% | 11.1h ☀︎ 96% | 11.3h ☀︎ 94% | 11.9h ☀︎ 95% | 11.6h ☀︎ 90% | 8.1h ☀︎ 62% | 9.4h ☀︎ 72% | 8.9h ☀︎ 70% | 7.4h ☀︎ 61% | 9.4h ☀︎ 80% | 10.7h ☀︎ 94% | 10.7h ☀︎ 96% |
| Wind | W · 14 km/h | S · 16 km/h | S · 18 km/h | S · 18 km/h | SE · 16 km/h | SE · 13 km/h | NW · 12 km/h | NW · 11 km/h | E · 11 km/h | NW · 12 km/h | NW · 12 km/h | NW · 13 km/h |
| Humidity (%) | 56% | 52% | 52% | 52% | 59% | 74% | 74% | 75% | 78% | 73% | 64% | 58% |
| Day length | 11.2h | 11.6h | 12.1h | 12.5h | 12.9h | 13.1h | 13.0h | 12.7h | 12.2h | 11.7h | 11.3h | 11.1h |
| Tourist Crowds | High season | High season | High season | Shoulder season | Low season | Low season | High season | Shoulder season | Low season | High season | High season | High season |
Oaxaca's signature indigenous festival fills the city with regional dance, music, and traditional dress over two consecu…
Oaxaca is one of the most celebrated places in Mexico to experience Dia de Muertos, with elaborate altars, candlelit cem…
On December 23rd, Oaxaca's main square fills with intricately carved radish sculptures depicting nativity scenes, local…
Every guidebook tells you to visit Oaxaca in February for textbook perfection, but May offers the real prize: the winter throngs have vanished, the jacarandas yield to warm, quiet evenings, and the city settles into its most generous everyday rhythm.
Oaxaca de Juárez sits high in the jagged cradle of the Central Valleys, an altitude that turns southern Mexican heat into something bright and breathable. For generations, travelers have made the pilgrimage here not merely for an urban getaway, but to touch the living tapestries of Zapotec and Mixtec heritage that thrive across its surrounding mountain villages and ancient terraces at Monte Albán. Yet most visitors arrive in a concentrated winter stampede, clutching weather apps that promise bone-dry skies, entirely missing the sweet spot when the city actually breathes.
Standard travel advice warns that spring brings heat and the first stirrings of rain. What it leaves out is that the dip in crowds completely transforms the historic core. By May, the packed foot traffic along the pedestrian corridors thins dramatically. Midday pushes highs toward 30 degrees, prompting long, shaded lunches under courtyard stone arches, but the afternoons deliver quick, theatrical cloudbursts that rinse the dust from the quarry stone and leave the evenings cool and fragrant.
Walking through Jalatlaco in May means having its cobblestone lanes, murals, and quiet cafes largely to yourself, without ducking selfie sticks at every street corner. You can spend an unhurried morning climbing the stone temples of Monte Albán before the heat peaks, watching the valley haze shift over the distant sierra, and return to find the Zócalo populated by local vendors, brass bands, and families rather than tour groups. It is the month where value and atmosphere align effortlessly.
If you judge a destination solely by a meteorological checklist, February is undeniably immaculate. The sky is a cloudless, porcelain blue from dawn to dusk, rain is virtually non-existent, and the crisp morning air begs for light wool before melting into mild afternoons. It is, on paper, paradise.
Because of that perfection, February is also the busiest month of the entire calendar. The plaza outside the church of Santo Domingo becomes an obstacle course of guided excursions, lines snake outside popular artisan workshops, and booking day trips out toward Mitla requires military coordination. January and March share this crystalline climate, but the sheer density of visitors blunts the contemplative, village-like soul that defines Oaxacan life. You come for pristine skies, but you pay for them in patience.
Come June, the summer monsoon stakes its claim on the valley. September is the wettest stretch of the year, bringing heavy downpours that routinely scrub out late-afternoon plans and soak the footpaths of the valley archaeological sites. If your dream trip involves wandering open-air markets and ruins under clear skies for hours on end, this is the window to avoid.
Yet July breaks the low-season slumber with the Guelaguetza. For two weeks, Indigenous delegations from across the eight regions of the state descend upon the capital, filling the avenues with swirling skirts, brass fanfares, and ancestral dance. The city swells with festive pride, tickets become hot commodities, and sudden afternoon cloudbursts do little to dampen the energy echoing from the auditoriums down into the streets. Come July only if you intend to surrender to the spectacle; if you want peace, the wet months will test you.
Late October brings one of the most hypnotic transformations anywhere in the Americas. As the rains taper off, the scent of copal incense and golden cempasúchil flowers takes over every alleyway for Day of the Dead. From the final nights of October through early November, candlelit vigils, elaborate sand tapestries, and vibrant comparsa processions weave through the city cemeteries and plazas. It is deeply crowded, intensely emotional, and impossible to mistake for an ordinary holiday.
Once the altars come down, November settles into an exceptional, golden calm—the rains are gone, the countryside remains emerald green from the summer wet season, and winter crowds have not yet peaked. By late December, the holiday spirit resurges with the Night of the Radishes on December 23rd, when the Zócalo packs tightly with onlookers marveling at folk sculptures carved from root vegetables, ushering in the crisp, cool nights of the new year.