Chengdu weather by month — averages, rainfall & climate trends
Sheltered deep in the Sichuan Basin, Chengdu lives under famously grey skies, a mild, humid, cloud-wrapped climate that colours everything about life on the plain. Average temperatures and rainfall by month, a climate graph, today's conditions versus the long-term average, and how the climate has shifted since 1940 — all on one page for Chengdu, China.
Today vs average
+7.8°Cmuch warmer than usual
How it’s changed
Right now
What it's doing today vs the historical average for this date.
Right now
26.9°
38°27°39°27°40°27°39°28°
38°29°
33°26°33°26°On this date — July 19
Warmer than usual · 7.8°C above the average high
- Record high: 35.6° · 2004
- Record low: 19.4° · 1945
- One year ago: 32.7°
Every July 19 in history — coldest to hottest
Dots show daily highs (top) and lows (bottom) for each July 19 on record (n = 87). Outlined dots are today's forecast.
Area we sample
Each city's history comes from one ERA5 grid cell — about 28 km across, shown by the dashed box. Near mountains or coasts, conditions can vary across the cell.
Location & data
Historical weather for Chengdu is sampled from the ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at 30.67°N, 104.07°E, with daily records since 1940.
- Coordinates
- 30.67°N, 104.07°E
- Time zone
- Asia/Shanghai
- Period
- 1940–2026
- Data source
- ERA5 (ECMWF)
Last 30 days
24 of the last 31 days were warmer than the historical average for that date. Average difference: +2.4°C.
Each bar is one day, from morning low to afternoon high. Warm-colored bars are days whose mean ran above average; cool bars ran below. The dot inside the bar is the daily mean. The shaded band is the typical 10–90% range expected for that date. Average = the day's mean temperature averaged across every year of record (1940–2026) for that calendar date.
This date over the years
One dot per year — the mean temperature on this calendar date. Dots are warmer or cooler than the long-term average (dashed line); the shaded band is the typical 10–90% range, and the highlighted dot is today's forecast. Based on ERA5 reanalysis — modelled estimates, not station readings.
Weather by month
Average temperatures and rainfall for each month — what a typical year looks like, from the full record.Climate overview
Chengdu occupies the Chengdu Plain in the western Sichuan Basin, with the steep wall of the Longmen Mountains rising to its northwest and the Qionglai range to its west. Its climate is monsoon-influenced humid subtropical (Köppen Cwa): humid the year round, with rainfall concentrated in the warmer months and falling most frequently in July and August. Far to the north, the Qin Mountains block the worst of the cold Siberian air, keeping winters mild, while persistent cloud cover means the city sees fewer hours of sun in a year than large parts of Northern Europe.
Snow is rare, though frost visits periodically in winter. The sharpest recent test came in the summer of 2022, when a heat wave of exceptional severity and persistence settled over the region: drought spread across Sichuan, water supplies to farms, businesses and industry were curtailed, electricity ran short, and artificial rainfall was induced in parts of the province before the strain finally eased in late August.
July brings the year's peak warmth: daily means of 26.3°C, with afternoons typically reaching 30.1°C. Around 115 nights a year stay above 20°C. At the other extreme, January averages 6.3°C, with typical overnight lows of 3.0°C.
Chengdu picks up roughly 1194 mm a year, with a peak of 320 mm in July and as little as 8 mm in January.
The record here starts in 1940, and since then the annual mean in Chengdu has climbed 1.4°C from the first ten years to the last ten. Days above 30°C have grown noticeably more frequent — from around 35 a year in the first decade to about 85 in the last.
Climate graph (climograph)
July is the warmest month, January the coolest — a yearly swing of 20°C. Wettest month: July (~320 mm). Whole year averages ~1194 mm of rain.
Bars = average monthly rainfall (right axis). Lines = average daily high and low (left axis). Average = each month's value averaged across every year of record (1940–2026).
Monthly wind
Average daily peak wind at 10 m, by month.
Monthly solar energy
Average daily incoming solar energy in megajoules per square metre — a measured proxy for how sunny the month is.
Chengdu month by month — what to expect
Typical conditions for each month, averaged across the full record (since 1940). Daylight is the time from sunrise to sunset. Record high/low are the most extreme values in the ERA5 dataset (modelled since 1940), so they can differ from official weather-station readings.
| Month | Avg high | Avg low | Rain | Daylight | Record high | Record low |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 9.8° | 3.0° | 8 mm | 10.2 h | 18.7° (2013) | -5.5° (1955) |
| February | 12.0° | 4.9° | 11 mm | 10.9 h | 24.4° (2021) | -4.7° (1945) |
| March | 17.3° | 9.3° | 24 mm | 11.8 h | 32.7° (2007) | -0.9° (1951) |
| April | 22.9° | 14.3° | 50 mm | 12.8 h | 36.7° (2019) | 3.1° (1969) |
| May | 26.9° | 18.6° | 73 mm | 13.6 h | 38.4° (2006) | 9.4° (1965) |
| June | 28.9° | 21.4° | 149 mm | 14.0 h | 39.5° (1960) | 14.7° (1966) |
| July | 30.1° | 23.1° | 320 mm | 13.8 h | 40.1° (2002) | 17.6° (1989) |
| August | 29.8° | 22.6° | 318 mm | 13.1 h | 41.6° (2022) | 15.8° (1999) |
| September | 25.6° | 19.4° | 164 mm | 12.2 h | 37.9° (2002) | 12.0° (1970) |
| October | 20.9° | 15.0° | 46 mm | 11.2 h | 31.8° (2016) | 2.5° (1986) |
| November | 16.0° | 9.7° | 22 mm | 10.4 h | 25.1° (2006) | -5.5° (1979) |
| December | 11.0° | 4.5° | 8 mm | 10.0 h | 20.1° (1968) | -5.7° (1944) |
How it has changed
Year-by-year signals from 1940 to today.Climate stripes
Annual mean shifted from 1940–1949 to 2016–2025 by +1.4°C.
Each vertical stripe is one year. Color encodes how much that year's annual mean differed from the long-term average. Average = each year's annual mean compared to the average of all years (1940–2026). cooler ← → warmer
Annual mean temperature
Long-term trend: +0.17°C per decade.
One point per year — the temperature averaged across the whole year. The dashed line is the least-squares long-term trend. Based on ERA5 reanalysis — modelled estimates, not station readings.
Seasonal warming
Jun–Aug is warming fastest: +0.22°C per decade.
Each faint line is one three-month period's average per year; the bold dashed line is its long-term trend. Different parts of the year often warm at different rates. Based on ERA5 reanalysis — modelled estimates, not station readings.
Hot days vs frost days
Days ≥ 30°C per year: 37.3 early in the record → 82.7 recently. Frost days: 17 → 4.
Thin lines are raw yearly counts; thick lines are the smoothed trend that removes year-to-year noise. The hot-day threshold is auto-picked per city so the line actually moves. Average = a centered 5-year rolling average to smooth weather noise.
Yearly hot & cold extremes
All-time high in 2022, all-time low in 1944: 41.6°C / -5.7°C.
One point per year — the single hottest and coldest day recorded that year.
Annual rainfall
~1194 mm/year on average. Last decade ran −6% vs that average. Long-term trend: −45 mm per decade.
One bar per year of total rainfall. Dashed line is the long-term average. Average = the average annual rainfall across every year of record (1940–2026).
Day-by-day grid
Each tiny square is one calendar day across the full record — ~30,000 days per city. Use the mode switch above the chart: Anomaly colors each day by how far it ran from the historical average for that date (red = warmer, blue = cooler), Daily mean temp shows the absolute mean temperature for the day (useful to see seasons and heatwaves), and Precipitation shows daily rainfall (useful to spot wet/dry seasons and droughts). Average = the long-term average for that calendar date (1940–2026).