Het weer in Albufeira (Algarve) in mei

Regulars describe the end of this month as very nice - not the intensity of July or August, but hot enough to spend a day on the beach and swim comfortably. Our row backs the pleasant, mild-summer read, 26.9C reading as 27C over 14.6C nights, with rain fairly unusual, 29.5mm across 4.7 days. Regulars are specific about a real day/night swing worth packing for - mid-to-high 20s during the day but nights cold enough to drop to 15-17C, cooler still earlier in the month. The sea sits at a cool 17.2C, fine for swimming according to regulars even in early May despite still being on the cooler side. The record: humidity 63 percent, 12.6 hours of sun, a 19.5 kph wind and AQI 42.

Regulars are honest this month splits, early October commonly described as one of the favorite times to visit with daytime temperatures in the low 20s Celsius, while the last couple of weeks can swing into a genuinely rainy, less warm stretch. Our row backs that mild, genuinely dry read, 26C over 15.8C nights, with rain light at 50mm across 6 days and humidity at 70 percent. Regulars are consistent any rain that does fall tends to be a short, sharp shower rather than a settled grey day, most tourist facilities staying open through the end of the month even as some of the bigger bars on the strip close their doors earlier. The sea sits at 19.9C. The record: 9.3 hours of sun, a 17.3 kph wind and AQI 38.

Regulars call September the best month of the Algarve year and their reasoning is a date: the town is packed from June to the end of September, but from about the 12th the English and Portuguese children are back at school, so it turns from frantic to merely busy with everything still open. Weather is not the variable - they promise endless sun and virtually no rain, and our row agrees at 11.4mm across 2.3 days under 30C. The one disagreement is the sea. They put it at about 22C and at its warmest of the year; our row reads 17.6C, colder than anyone on that board would recognise, so take theirs as the lived figure. The record: 18C nights, humidity 61 percent, 11 hours of sun and AQI 36.

The line Albufeira regulars repeat is that this is the Atlantic and not the Mediterranean, and in August that is the point rather than the complaint: with the air at 30C and sometimes 38 in the middle of the month, cool water is what you want. Our row's 34.5C at 52 percent humidity is a properly arid August, with 0.1mm of rain and no precipitation days at all. On the sea they quote anything from 20 to 23C depending on the upwelling; ours says 18.2C, so treat that as the cold end rather than the forecast. Nobody is deterred - the water is full of people, locals included - and the town is packed to the doors. The 19.8C nights are a fifteen-degree drop from the afternoon. The record: 12.5 hours of sun, a 19.1 kph wind and AQI 38.

Two things to know about July here. The beach is packed - this is the British family school-holiday month, and regulars say plainly that you will be fighting for a space on the sand and in the water. And the sea is Atlantic rather than Mediterranean: cold for the first minute against a 30C-plus air temperature, fine after a few. On the number itself the forum and our row disagree - regulars put July's sea around 23C, our row reads 18.7C, which belongs to a colder, more westerly stretch of this coast than the town's own beaches. The record: 33.9C days that feel like 35C, 19.2C nights, no precipitation days at all, humidity 54 percent and 13.2 hours of sun.