Vancouver — sää kuukausittain

Depending on who you talk to, or perhaps, when, Vancouver's climate is either much maligned or envied. Late fall and winter are typically damp with clouds smothering the sky like a wet grey blanket (there's a reason Vancouver is sometimes referred to as the "Wet Coast"). But there are benefits to all that rain: it's usually not snowing (unlike most of the rest of Canada) and it leads to a gorgeous display of colour with the start of spring in early March. And that's where Vancouver really shines – the spring and summer. Springs can still be wet, but it gets warmer and the shrubs, blossom trees and flowers put on a pretty show. Summer days are long and usually sunny with little humidity. Summer daylight lasts from 5:15AM to as late as 9:15PM in late June. Summer temperatures from mid-June to early-Sept are mostly comfortable. Temperatures peak in late July and early August with an average daytime highs around 23°C and overnight lows around 15°C.…

Vancouver forum regulars describe January plainly: “grey skies and rain...temperatures around 2-5 degrees Celsius,” with frost at night and in the morning but daytime readings usually staying just above freezing — “it rains a lot in Vancouver in Dec/Jan (180mm on average)” is the number that keeps coming up, rain being the default rather than the exception. Every building runs heated, so the standard advice is to dress in outdoor layers you can shed indoors rather than one heavy coat throughout. With the outdoors soggy, regulars redirect visitors toward museums, theatre and concerts, plus indoor-adjacent options like Granville Island and the Capilano Suspension Bridge on a drier window. Our record backs the wet read hard: 367.6mm of rain across 20.2 days and 35.1cm of snow for the month — the wettest stretch of the year here, not a quiet winter lull.

Vancouver forum threads describe February as a grey, damp month rather than a genuinely cold one - typical highs around 8-10C, lows around 2-4C, with real snow described as rare here even in winter. Rain was flagged as the defining feature, with posters citing around 16 rainy days and roughly 105mm of rainfall typical for the month, and the persistent dampness described as making the temperature feel colder than the number alone suggests. A few threads noted that late February can bring a genuine burst of sun and milder air, sometimes into the teens Celsius, so the month isn't uniformly bleak - just consistently in need of proper rain layers, a warm hat and gloves for the grey stretches.

Regulars describe this month as genuinely variable rather than settled either way - some stretches bring drizzly, grey days, others string together enough sunshine that people sunbathe on the beach - with the reassurance that a real multi-day soak is unusual, more like three wet days than ten in a row. Our row backs the mild, damp-leaning read, 17.5C over 9.7C nights, with 51.1mm of rain across 7.6 days. Regulars are specific that the back half of the month, sliding into June, tends to bring less rain and warmer afternoons than the front half. The standard packing advice is layering plus an umbrella - jeans and t-shirts for a sunny stretch, a light jacket for the cooler or wetter one. The sea sits at a cool 15.3C. The record: humidity 74 percent, 11.2 hours of sun and AQI 50.

June gloom is the local name and regulars will tell you the grey holds until about mid-July - but they also describe what it actually is: drizzle rather than rain, rarely all day and rarely everywhere, with some Junes spent in shorts with the windows open. Our row sides with the optimists on two counts. Rain is 47.7mm across 6.5 days, and there are 12.1 hours of sun inside 16.2 of daylight, which is not a grey month by any measure. What it is not is warm: 20C days and 12.2C nights, with a 16.5C sea. The other thing June has is quiet, because Canadian schools do not break until its last week. The record: humidity 73 percent and AQI 48.

July is Vancouver's most stable month — the forum calls it reliably sunny, warm and dry, with an average high near 23°C and rain on only five or six days, though posters stress the range can run anywhere from 18°C to the low 30s depending on the year. Pack for both ends: shorts and a swimsuit, but also jeans, a hoodie and a waterproof layer, and reckon on about five degrees cooler if you carry on into the Rockies. The catch is volume rather than weather — July is peak season, with two or three cruise ships disembarking a day.

August in Vancouver is warm, sunny and dry - the city does not get the heat and humidity that eastern North American cities do, and July through September carries very little rain, our row putting August at 3.8 precipitation days. The forum's reservation is smoke. Late July and August fall inside wildfire season, and regulars have gone as far as advising against those weeks in bad years, with reports of haze thick enough to set off asthma; September and October usually bring the wind that clears it. The other August cost is company, because peak cruise season runs June to September. The record: 23.2C days that feel like 24C, 14.6C nights, 11.8 hours of sun and a 19.1C sea.

Regulars describe the first two weeks of this month as essentially a cooler continuation of late August, with the chance of rain and cooler temperatures both increasing steadily as the month progresses - a genuine within-month gradient rather than one flat verdict. Our row backs the mild, still-summery average, 19C over 11.7C nights, with 77.1mm of rain across 8.4 days. Regulars call this one of the driest months of the year overall, with the trade for coming later in the month being noticeably thinner crowds and shorter waits at popular activities. The sea sits at 16.8C. The record: humidity 80 percent, 9.1 hours of sun, a 9.9 kph wind and AQI 46.