Kanazawa hava durumu: ay ay

March here is the end of a Sea of Japan winter rather than the start of spring. It can still snow in the first week, and our column carries 13.1cm across the month; the pines in Kenrokuen are still wearing their yukitsuri, the rope cones that hold the branches up under snow. Plum blossom opens from about the middle of the month in the grove at the garden's southern end, while the cherry belongs to April - regulars put the gardens at their best two or three weeks after mid-March. The weather is the cost: 12.9C reading as 9C, nights at 4.2C standing at 0C in a 22.9 kph wind, and 139.8mm of rain across 15 days. Early mornings are the quiet hours. The record: humidity 75 percent, 8.4 hours of sun and AQI 58.

Regulars put the Kanazawa blossom peak around the 10th to the 15th of April, with a chance from about the 6th depending on the year, and they attach a warning that matters more than the dates. Spring rain is frequent here, and rain arriving with strong wind brings the flowers down with it - so the risk to the trip is not a wet afternoon but the end of the thing you came for. Our row is blunt about both halves: 153.4mm across 12.8 days, and a 22 kph average wind. Days reach 17.9C over 8.9C nights that feel like 5C, so layers rather than spring clothes. The record: humidity 75 percent, 9.2 hours of sun, 0.8cm of snow still on the books and AQI 64.

Kanazawa's forum rates May as one of the best months to visit — sunny and warm in the low-to-mid 20s°C, neither hot nor humid, with flowers in bloom and crowds thinner once Golden Week passes in the first week. Regulars flag it as genuinely changeable weather even so, a run of sunshine followed by a day or two of rain, so packing both light layers and a rain shell covers the range.

The tsuyu reaches Kanazawa around the 8th to the 10th of June, so the first week is the dry one and the rest of the month is the rainy season - though regulars are careful that this does not mean rain every day, and that what falls is usually light and warm rather than torrential, often intermittent and sometimes replaced by sun. Our row is at the wet end of that description: 152.6mm across 12.3 precipitation days, about twelve millimetres a wet day, under 26.6C and 79 percent humidity. Their advice is not to reschedule around it. Unless it is pouring, go to Kenrokuen - the hydrangeas and the moss are at their best now and the rain thins the crowds - and if you arrive without one, hotels lend umbrellas and any convenience store sells one for about 500 yen. The record: 19C nights, 9.7 hours of sun and AQI 64.

Regulars are direct that this falls squarely within typhoon season here, a day or two of genuinely heavy downpour and strong wind a real possibility that can disrupt transport and sightseeing plans. Our row backs that warm, genuinely wet read, 28.1C reading as a hot 31C, over 21C nights feeling 22C, with a substantial 202mm of rain across 15.3 days and humidity at 84 percent. Regulars are consistent most of the rain that does fall arrives without the wind, an inexpensive umbrella the standard advice rather than a reason to cancel outdoor plans outright. Kanazawa itself can also catch the tail end of typhoons making landfall elsewhere in Japan even without a direct hit. The sea sits at a bath-warm 28C. The record: 8.3 hours of sun, an 18.3 kph wind and AQI 40.

October in Kanazawa splits in two. Early October is warmer and drier and a bit early for the leaves, which do not get serious here until the end of the month and are really a November proposition; late October cools to the 60s and 70s F and brings more rain, with the tail of the typhoon season still possible mid-month. Our own row is the caution: 14.2 precipitation days carrying 170.4mm and only 7.5 hours of sun a day - this is the Sea of Japan side. The forum's answer to that is to go anyway, because Kenrokuen in rain is still Kenrokuen, and several regulars rate it higher wet than dry. The rest: 22C days, 14.2C nights, humidity 81 percent, a 23.2C sea.

Forum posters describe November mornings as cool (around 9C), warming to a comfortable 17C by afternoon - broadly compared by one poster to an October day in New York. Posters note Kanazawa runs wet year-round by Japanese standards, and that pattern holds into November, with the region tipping into a wetter, colder late-autumn phase as the month winds down and the trees lose their leaves. Fall foliage is timed by posters to peak in mid-to-late November - a visit November 9-13 catches only the early color, with the fuller display arriving toward month's end. Posters recommend daily layers, with a fleece a near-constant part of the outfit through the month.