Amsterdam weather by month

Amsterdam is a large city and a major tourist destination, so you can visit it all year round. However, in winter the days are short (8 hours of daylight around Christmas between 08:45 and 16:30), and the weather may be too cold to walk around the city comfortably, let alone cycle. January and February are the coldest months, with lows around 0°C and highs around 5°C. Snow does occur a few times each winter, but it's often light and rarely stays on the ground more than a couple of days. In summer, heat waves (3 days above 30°C) are common, as is a temperature of 18°C with rainfall. July and August are the warmest months, with an average temperature of 22°C at daytime and 14°C at night. Days with very high temperatures above 27°C are often followed with nights around or above 17°C. Sunsets are as late as 22:00 and sunrise is around 05:30 during the summer. Neither summer nor winter constantly have the mentioned values. Always be prepared for rain.…

Amsterdam forum regulars keep January's range wide: “anywhere between -15 and 15 degrees Celsius, with various degrees of rain, snow or clear skies,” a bit bleak and rainy/windy more often than not, though occasionally clear enough for skatable ice on the canals. Cold that feels worse than the number suggests is a recurring warning — dress for wind as much as temperature. Forecasts genuinely can't be trusted more than a week out, so the standard advice is to check again a few days before travel rather than plan around a long-range guess. The upside regulars keep repeating: January and February draw real fans specifically because visits run cheaper with far fewer people. Our record: 6.8°C days, 3.3°C nights, 12 rain days and 1.7cm of snow — cold, wet and windy, sitting toward the milder end of the wide range forums describe.

April is the tulip question, and the traveller forums split it in two: Keukenhof itself has tulips from late March, but the open bulb fields around it usually peak from mid-April into early May, so early-April visitors often find daffodils and hyacinths in the fields instead. The weather is its own gamble — regulars describe anything from 5°C and cloudy to 20°C and sunny, sometimes in the same day, against a real April average high near 12°C. Layers and a waterproof, not a forecast, is the advice.

Regulars name real year-to-year extremes rather than a settled pattern: one recent May brought snow and storms, another ran hot and summery, with most years landing somewhere between - shorts weather one afternoon, fleece-and-rain-jacket weather the next. Our row backs the mild average sitting between those extremes, 18.6C over 8.8C nights feeling 7C, with 62.8mm of rain across 8.7 days. Regulars consistently recommend checking the forecast just a couple of days out rather than trusting any seasonal generalization, and packing a genuine waterproof layer alongside lighter clothes regardless. The record: humidity 76 percent, 11.5 hours of sun, a 19.6 kph wind and AQI 49.

Regulars are consistent on one point: there's no defined wet season here, so June's weather is decent on average but genuinely unpredictable day to day, with a real chance of rain on any given afternoon regardless of the season. Our row backs the mild, changeable read, 21.9C over 12.6C nights, with 82mm of rain across 8.6 days and a real 19.2 kph wind. The standard packing advice reflects the variability directly - bring both a jacket for a cool or wet stretch and t-shirts for a sunny one, since a single week can swing between both. Regulars are quick to add that a lousy multi-day stretch is rare, and the city's museums are the fallback for whichever afternoon does turn wet. The record: humidity 76 percent, 11.7 hours of sun and AQI 49.

The Amsterdam forum's honest answer on July: yes it's the busiest month, but multiple regulars point out museum lines are still nothing like Paris in the same season, and a genuinely hot day (30°C+) is the exception, not the rule.

August is the busiest month here and regulars give the pattern rather than the warning: Monday to Wednesday is quiet, Thursday picks up, and the weekend is full - and late August weekdays are quieter still, because the Netherlands has gone back to work. On weather they describe showers off the North Sea as frequent and unpredictable but rarely heavy: it rains part of the day and then clears, and it is not a reason to change plans. Our 76.9mm across 9.3 days agrees. Days average 23.1C reading as 22C in an 18.8 kph wind, with 13.9C nights. The record: humidity 77 percent, 11 hours of sun inside 14.6 of daylight, and AQI 47.

Amsterdam forum regulars call October genuinely unpredictable — “can bring freezing cold or Indian summer, or all that in a matter of days” — with the first half of the month generally milder than the back half as autumn sets in properly. A light jacket covers most days, but nights start to cool down and by month's end can turn genuinely cold, with the swing running anywhere from 5°C to 20°C depending on the week. Rain isn't dramatically worse than other months — “not that much difference in rain” between September and October — but wind is “quite common,” so an umbrella is a coin flip against a proper rain shell. The reward for the back half: real autumn color in the parks. Our record: 15°C days, 10.5°C nights, 17.2 rain days and a 22.7kph wind — cool, wet more often than not, and blustery enough that the wind matters as much as the rain.