Antigua Guatemala Weather: Climate, Rain and Altitude

Antigua sits at about 1,530 m (5,013 ft) above sea level. The ERA5 grid cell used for the climate table on this page reads 1,542 m, which is consistent with the commonly cited figure for the city itself. That elevation is the single most important fact about Antigua Guatemala weather, because it does two things at once.

First, it flattens the temperature curve. Average highs run between 24 and 27°C (75 and 81°F) in every month of the thirty-year record. April, the warmest month, is only about 3.5°C warmer than October, the coolest.

There are no seasons of heat here in the way a lowland tropical city has them. The thermometer does not tell you what month it is. Second, altitude cools the nights.

Average lows drop to 13.6°C (56°F) in January and stay near 14°C (57°F) through February. Nights in the 50s °F are normal year-round, even when the afternoon reached the high 70s. The dry-season months are the ones where this bites hardest, because clear skies let the heat escape after sunset.

The practical consequences are simple. Pack layers. Bring a real jacket for after dark, not just for volcanoes.

The evening chill catches travellers who packed believing Central America means heat everywhere, and they spend the first dinner of the trip shivering in a t-shirt while locals wear denim. Altitude also strengthens the sun. The ultraviolet load at 1,500 m is noticeably higher than at sea level, and sunburn on a mild 24°C day is a routine event here.

Sunscreen is a dry-season and wet-season item alike. Finally, half the year the one two-word forecast that matters is afternoon rain. It is the pattern the next heading unpacks, and it shapes how each wet-season day should be spent.

The wet season runs May to October, and the first thing to understand is that it does not rain all day. The working pattern in the wet months is a bright morning, cloud building over the volcanoes from midday, and a heavy late-afternoon or evening shower that usually clears by dark. Mornings are reliable.

Afternoons are not. The monthly totals make the season's weight clear. September is the wettest month of the thirty-year record with 311.4 mm spread across about 28 rainy days, which means it rains on nearly every day but rarely for long.

June follows with 300.4 mm across 25.8 rainy days, and May opens the season with 213.5 mm on 25.5 days. August and October run in the 219 to 227 mm range. The shoulders behave differently.

November drops to 54.2 mm on 9.2 rainy days, and April rises to 78.5 mm on 16 days as the season approaches. The dry core of December to February is a different world: between 6.8 and 9.9 mm a month on 2.5 to 3.2 rainy days. You can travel for two weeks in January without seeing a drop.

Route the day around the pattern. Ruins, Cerro de la Cruz and any viewpoint belong in the morning, when the sky is clearest and the light is best for the volcano backdrop. Lunch is your indoor block.

Markets, museums and covered shopping fill the wet afternoon without loss. This scheduling trick turns the rainy season from an obstacle into a rhythm. Two practical warnings.

Wet cobblestones are slick, and Antigua is paved with them, so grip-soled shoes matter from May to October. And the afternoon shower can be heavy enough to flood streets briefly, so keep electronics in a dry bag. For the full indoor set on a wet day, see things to do.

The canícula, sometimes called a veranillo or little summer, is a dry spell that lands in the middle of the rainy season. It is not a myth or a local saying. It shows up in the data.

Look at July in the table above. It averages 171.4 mm of rain, while August next door takes 218.9 mm and June takes 300.4 mm. That dip in the middle of the wettest part of the year is the canícula's signature in the thirty-year record, and July's rainy-day count falls to 20.0 from June's 25.8.

The spell is forecast officially. Guatemala's meteorological service, INSIVUMEH, issues a seasonal forecast each year. For the current season it expected the canícula to begin in early or mid July, to run up to about 40 days, and to end between about 20 July and 10 August in a typical run.

During the spell, rainfall drops to roughly 25 to 50 percent below normal for the period. What does that mean for a trip? Mid-July can behave like a shoulder month.

Mornings are clear, afternoons less reliably wet, and the landscape is still green from the early rains. Hikers and photographers rate this window highly. But plan for the wet season anyway.

The start date and length of the spell move from year to year, so a given week in July is never guaranteed to be dry. The sensible approach is to book the wet-season itinerary and treat the canícula as a bonus if it lands on your dates. Check INSIVUMEH's seasonal forecast close to booking rather than trusting the calendar alone.

Antigua's valley sits under three volcanoes, which means the forecast for Antigua and the sky over your rooftop can disagree. Cloud pours over the ridges while the town stays dry, or the reverse. Treat any single-point forecast as a hint, not a promise.

Remember what the table on this page is. It is a thirty-year normal, useful for choosing a month and useless for choosing a Tuesday. For the next ten days, use a proper forecast service rather than climatology.

Weather matters most at elevation. Summit conditions on Pacaya and Acatenango are their own microclimate, far colder and windier than town, with rain that turns hail-like at altitude. A 24°C afternoon in Antigua says nothing about what you will meet above 3,000 m, and summit gear is a separate packing problem from town gear.

There is also a status gate that overrides all weather planning. Fuego and Acatenango summit hikes are suspended under CONRED's orange alert, with no reopening date announced. Pacaya is open.

Check the current situation on the Pacaya page before you commit to any volcano plan. The official advice, repeated by the UK Foreign Office, is to check CONRED, Guatemala's disaster agency, and the Guatemalan met office before any volcano hike. Status changes with volcanic activity, not with the seasons, so a hike that was fine last month may not be fine now.

Weather forecasts tell you whether you will be comfortable. CONRED tells you whether you can go at all.

The dry months of November to April are the classic window, and the data backs the reputation: December and January average under 11 mm of rain a month on fewer than three rainy days. If you want maximum certainty for outdoor days, that is the stretch to book. Weigh the timing in detail on the best time to visit page.

One calendar event sits inside the dry season and bends everything around it. Semana Santa, Holy Week, brings the city's biggest spectacle and its biggest crowds, with processions and street carpets through the historic center. The weather is usually on its best behavior, which is part of why the whole country shows up.

Plan far ahead for Semana Santa or accept that rooms near the procession routes will be gone. The wet season has a real case of its own. The landscape is at its greenest, crowds are thin, and the afternoons-only rain pattern means mornings that work for everything outdoors.

September's 311.4 mm sounds heavy, but spread over about 28 short showers it leaves the whole morning free, every day. When to avoid the town on weather grounds alone: late September and October, the two months where the afternoon rain is close to a daily certainty rather than a rhythm. Everything else in the wet season is a scheduling problem, not a reason to stay home.

Volcano hiking depends on CONRED status, not the season. As of the latest check, Fuego and Acatenango summit hikes are suspended under the orange alert and Pacaya is open, so confirm before booking rather than assuming the dry season solves it. When rain does land on your day, the city carries it.

Museums, chocolate workshops and coffee tours are all indoor or covered activities, and the afternoon shower is exactly when they shine. Build your wet-day shortlist from things to do before you arrive, and the weather stops being a risk.

The packing list the data dictates is short. Work through it item by item. Sun protection comes first.

At about 1,530 m the sun is stronger than the mild temperatures suggest, and sunburn on a 24°C day is routine here. Sunscreen, a hat and sunglasses belong in the bag in every month, dry or wet. A light rain shell covers half the year.

From May to October the monthly totals range from 171.4 mm to 311.4 mm, and even November and April carry 54.2 mm and 78.5 mm respectively. From December through February you can leave it at the hotel, since those months run under 11 mm. Even in the dry months, a shell earns its place on cool evenings.

A warm layer is not optional. Average lows sit between 13.6 and 14°C (56 to 57°F) from November to February, and nights in the 50s °F are normal year-round. A fleece or sweater for dinner and after dark is the item most travellers wish they had packed.

Shoes with grip matter in the wet months. Rain on Antigua's cobblestones makes them slick, and September's 28 rainy days mean wet stone underfoot most days. Save the smooth-soled shoes for the dry season.

Quick-dry clothing wins from May to October, when laundry may not dry overnight. Cotton takes a day and a half in the wet season. An umbrella works in town, where streets are narrow and the showers are short.

A hooded shell wins on the mirador and any viewpoint, where the wind turns umbrellas inside out. Tie every item to the figures in the table above and you will pack once, correctly.

Every number on this page comes from one place, and it is worth understanding what that place is. The figures are monthly means computed from the ERA5 archive, a reanalysis of observed weather covering 1995 to 2024, pulled for the grid cell directly over the city at coordinates that resolve to an elevation of 1,542 m. A reanalysis is not a single thermometer: it is a physical model of the atmosphere constrained by decades of real observations, which is why it can produce a stable normal for a valley town whose own station record is patchy.

Thirty years is long enough that a wet month and a dry month cannot swap places inside it, which is the whole point of publishing one. What a normal cannot do is tell you about a specific afternoon. The table counts a rainy day as any day with at least 1 mm of precipitation, which is why September shows rain on about 28 days without meaning twenty-eight all-day washouts.

It averages away the hour of the day, which is exactly the detail that matters here, and it says nothing about wind, humidity or the view from the mirador on your particular morning. Use it to choose a month and a packing list, as above. Use a live forecast, and your own eyes at breakfast, for the day itself.

And use the climatologist's own caveat: the canícula section is the one place where a seasonal forecast, not a normal, is the right tool, because a dry spell inside a wet season is an event, not an average.