Været i Varanasi (Benares) i september

Regulars call this the real start of the tourist season here, marking the point where the monsoon's grip finally breaks - the skies clear, the Ganges itself runs cleaner, and every type of boat ride along the ghats becomes reliably operational again after the rainy months. Our row backs that transitional, still-warm read, 32.9C reading as a hot 37C, over 21.5C nights, with 69.4mm of rain across 5.4 days and humidity at 76 percent. Regulars are consistent that midday can still call for AC despite the season technically turning, with genuinely cool weather not arriving until November. Evening aarti ceremonies along the ghats are specifically recommended now that the crowds and cleaner river make for easier viewing. The record: 9.5 hours of sun, a 9.9 kph wind and AQI 124.

March is the end of the cool dry season here and it heats through itself: regulars put mid-March around 35C by day, and our monthly average of 33.3C over 17.5C shows how cold the nights still are at the start. Holi moves with the lunar calendar and lands somewhere in March, so check the year - the city is crowded on the day and merely busy the week before, when only a few children are throwing colour. The ghats fill twice daily regardless, for the morning boats and the evening aarti. Rain is negligible at 16.5mm. The season's cost is the air, AQI 130, with no rain due for three months. The record: humidity 50 percent and 10.8 hours of sun.

November is the season here in both senses. The weather turns favourable - regulars give 25 to 28C and our row reads 29.2C days over 15.4C nights with essentially no rain, 1.4mm - and the ghats fill, because Dev Deepawali falls in this month on a lunar date that moves, lighting the steps with thousands of oil lamps, with Nag Nathaiya alongside it. Boats run at dusk and the hotels need booking well ahead. The figure to weigh against all of that is the air: AQI 165, the highest in this collection, in the post-monsoon still that also gives the month its clear dry days. The record: humidity 66 percent, 9.8 hours of sun and a 9.4 kph wind.

December is the month regulars recommend for Varanasi - the winter window of November to February, cold enough to walk the ghats all day without wilting. Their figures run 10C at night to about 20 or 25C by day, which our row gives as 11.1C and 23.9C. The complication is fog, which settles over the north Indian plain in this season and thickens in the second half of December, sitting on the river at dawn and evening and, more practically, delaying trains by hours or cancelling them outright - build slack into the itinerary. Our row adds the figure the forum does not discuss: AQI 165, the winter air of the Gangetic plain. The record: 0.9 precipitation days carrying 8.5mm, humidity 70 percent and 9.3 hours of sun.