Meteo Rovigno in maggio

One local calls May their favourite month here - fresh and green, the season just starting, service better than it will be later - and regulars back the shoulder-season read: busy in the day with tour groups, quiet in the mornings and at night, nothing like June through August. Our row gives 21.5C over 13.3C with 115.4mm across 14.5 days, wetter than a postcard month but not a washout. The sea splits the month in two: no chance of getting in early on, a hot day at the very end of May might tempt an experienced swimmer into a quick dip at around 22C, and our column's 17.2C sits closer to the early-month reading. Nights are genuinely cool at 13.3C. The record: humidity 73 percent, 11.8 hours of sun, a 15.6 kph wind and AQI 52.

Regulars are specific this counts as the season waking up without the fuss of peak summer, fresh spring greenery, flowers blooming everywhere and even wild asparagus season locally, genuinely fewer crowds the real upside. Our row backs that cool, genuinely wet read, 17.5C over 9C nights feeling 6C, with a substantial 76.6mm of rain across 9.3 days and a trace of very early snow, 0.3cm. Regulars are honest a rainy stretch and a beautiful sunny run both remain realistic within the same trip, one visitor's mid-April week turning out sunny and beautiful start to finish. Swimming stays genuinely out of reach though, the sea itself far too cold for anyone but the hardiest. The sea sits at 13.6C. The record: 10.7 hours of sun, a 16.6 kph wind and AQI 48.

The sea is not what ends the season here. Regulars say it barely cools from August and put it near 22C - our row has 24.1C - so swimming holds up all month, and after the first week the crowds are gone. What closes is the town: by the middle and end of September bars and restaurants start shutting, and around the 20th the sun beds come in. Weather is a lottery within that, one week sunny and the next a washout. Our 145.3mm falls across only 10.2 days, fourteen millimetres apiece, so the rain when it comes is a storm rather than a grey spell. The record: 24.8C days over 16.4C nights, 10 hours of sun, a 14.9 kph wind and AQI 48.

Rovinj regulars split June cleanly. The first half is pleasant walking weather with the odd rainy day that never lasts; from mid-month the temperatures climb into the mid and high twenties and the sea reaches 22 or 23C - our row's 22.4C average and 27.4C day, reading as 30C, are the two halves blended. Crowds follow the same line: June is the month they recommend for warmth without the July and August peak, but they are honest that late June and early July fill up and that nowhere on this coast is quiet then. September is the equivalent on the other side. Long warm evenings are the part they mention unprompted. The record: 18.3C nights, 65.1mm across 8.5 precipitation days, 13.2 hours of sun and AQI 63.

August in Istria is hot and full, and the forum softens neither. Mid-July to mid-August is the hot and crowded stretch, and the last two weeks of August are the busiest of the year here, because Italians cross the border for Ferragosto. Rovinj in mid to late August gets described plainly as incredibly hot. The beaches are the other expectation to adjust before arriving: these are stone and rock rather than sand, or even the pebble of somewhere like Nice, and on Red Island the thing regulars value is the tree cover, which gives shade and a breeze the open rock does not. The record: 30C days that feel like 33C, 20.2C nights, 6.9 precipitation days carrying 72.5mm, 12.1 hours of sun and a 26C sea.