Været i Córdoba, Spain (Cordoba) i august

Regulars put August in perspective rather than dismissing it: the city is seldom above 35C and it does cool at night, but between one and five in the afternoon there is no escape outdoors that is not air conditioned. The exception they all name is the terral, the hot wind that comes down off the inland hills - one of them describes it as somebody switching on a giant hair dryer - which lifts the temperature well past normal for a few days at a time. Our row gives 31.4C reading as 35C, nights holding 23.6C, and effectively no rain, 4.1mm across half a day. The sea column says 25.7C, but they warn it follows the wind that week: a poniente pulls colder Atlantic water along the coast. The record: humidity 68 percent, 12.5 hours of sun and AQI 54.

Regulars call this month bearable, more so than July which holds the highest average summer temperatures anywhere in Europe, but still genuinely demanding - one visitor's late-June trip saw 35C one day and a forecast of 40C the next. Our row backs real heat, 33.8C reading as a real 34C, over 17.1C nights, with rain almost absent, 9.7mm across 1.6 days, and humidity down to a dry 42 percent. The standard advice is air-conditioned accommodation and structuring sightseeing around the cooler morning and evening hours rather than midday. The record: 13.2 hours of sun, a 16.8 kph wind and AQI 42.

Cordoba-forum threads on winter visits describe January as genuinely cold for Andalusia, mild by afternoon but frosty at dawn and after dark. Rain shows up on a real share of days, though posters call it light and passing rather than a settled soak. The clear upside every thread repeats: this is the cheapest month by a wide margin, hotels costing a third of their April rate, and the Mezquita's forest of columns often has only a handful of other visitors wandering through it. The Juderia quiet enough that footsteps on stone are the loudest sound around. Regulars recommend a warm layer for mornings and evenings and treating a sunny afternoon as the window for outdoor sightseeing. The record: 15.4C days feeling like 13C, 3.8C nights, 54mm across 7.5 days, 76 percent humidity and 7.4 hours of sun.

September in Cordoba is still summer. Regulars give high-20s to low-30s as the normal and report mid-30s and even 40C in early-to-mid September, against our row's 32.3C at 49 percent humidity - dry heat, but heat. Their working pattern is to do the indoor things through the middle of the day, use the palace gardens, which stay cooler, and save the wandering for the evening. That advice doubles as crowd advice, because Cordoba's visitors are overwhelmingly day-trippers: the city is packed by day and quietens the moment the coaches go, which is also when the light is best. Wide-brimmed hat, covered shoulders, sunscreen. The record: 16.8C nights, 3.1 precipitation days carrying 20.6mm and 10.9 hours of sun.

May in Cordoba is the patios, and the forum's advice is to plan around them rather than be surprised by them. The Fiesta de los Patios runs roughly the first two weeks of the month - UNESCO-listed since 2012, free to walk into the courtyards, donations accepted, singing and dancing in the streets - and with the May Crosses before it the city is genuinely full. The patios themselves are the local answer to the climate: courtyards with running water sit noticeably cooler than the street outside. May is when the heat starts building here in earnest, with June routinely 30 to 35C, so regulars treat it as the last comfortable month for walking the old town. The record: 29C days against 12.6C nights, 5.3 precipitation days, humidity 51 percent, 12.4 hours of sun.