Kyoto weather by month — averages, rainfall & climate trends
Japan's ancient imperial capital lives by its seasons: Kyoto's temples and gardens stage the year's turning, from spring cherry blossom to the hush of occasional winter snow, all cradled in a mountain-ringed basin. 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 Kyoto, Japan.
Today vs average
+5.1°Cmuch warmer than usual
How it’s changed
Right now
What it's doing today vs the historical average for this date.
Right now
36.1°
36°27°36°27°36°27°37°26°38°26°
38°26°
35°26°On this date — July 20
Warmer than usual · 5.1°C above the average high
- Record high: 36.8° · 2018
- Record low: 18.9° · 1971
- One year ago: 34.3°
Every July 20 in history — coldest to hottest
Dots show daily highs (top) and lows (bottom) for each July 20 on record (n = 86). 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 Kyoto is sampled from the ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at 35.02°N, 135.75°E, with daily records since 1940.
- Coordinates
- 35.02°N, 135.75°E
- Time zone
- Asia/Tokyo
- Period
- 1940–2026
- Data source
- ERA5 (ECMWF)
Last 30 days
17 of the last 30 days were warmer than the historical average for that date. Average difference: +0.8°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
Kyoto fills the Yamashiro Basin on the eastern side of the Tamba highlands; the Higashiyama, Kitayama and Nishiyama mountains close it in on three sides, and the Kamo, Katsura and Uji rivers thread through it. The climate is humid subtropical (Köppen Cfa), but the interior basin setting sharpens both ends of the year: sticky midsummer heat, and winters cold enough for the occasional snow. The rainy season sets in around mid-June and breaks in late July, after which late summer turns hot and sunny; typhoons frequently add rain from summer into autumn.
The July 2018 heat wave that gripped Northeast Asia hit Kyoto hard, holding the city in extreme heat for a week on end; researchers read that summer's swing from flood to heat as a monsoon cycle turning more extreme as the climate warms. The warming shows up in gentler ways too: in 2021, Kyoto's cherry trees reached full bloom earlier than at any point in a record reaching back some twelve centuries, as average spring temperatures have climbed.
August brings the year's peak warmth: daily means of 27.5°C, with afternoons typically reaching 31.9°C. Roughly 75 days a year now top 30°C. At the other extreme, January averages 4.1°C, with typical overnight lows of 0.7°C.
In total, Kyoto averages about 1701 mm of precipitation a year; July is usually the wettest month (259 mm) and December the driest (60 mm).
Over the full record (since 1940), the annual mean temperature in Kyoto has risen by 3.1°C between its first decade and its last. Where the first decade averaged 70 frost days a year, the recent one saw about 15.
Climate graph (climograph)
August is the warmest month, January the coolest — a yearly swing of 23°C. Wettest month: July (~259 mm). Whole year averages ~1701 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.
Kyoto 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 | 8.2° | 0.7° | 63 mm | 9.9 h | 17.0° (1997) | -9.2° (2023) |
| February | 8.9° | 1.1° | 76 mm | 10.7 h | 21.8° (1954) | -10.3° (1947) |
| March | 12.8° | 4.0° | 115 mm | 11.7 h | 24.7° (2025) | -5.7° (1956) |
| April | 18.8° | 9.4° | 141 mm | 12.9 h | 29.1° (2005) | -2.0° (1963) |
| May | 23.3° | 14.2° | 159 mm | 13.8 h | 32.8° (1958) | 2.9° (1940) |
| June | 26.6° | 19.0° | 239 mm | 14.3 h | 35.7° (1987) | 8.7° (1969) |
| July | 30.5° | 23.3° | 259 mm | 14.1 h | 38.0° (2025) | 12.1° (1966) |
| August | 31.9° | 24.0° | 165 mm | 13.3 h | 39.5° (1994) | 14.7° (1956) |
| September | 27.8° | 20.2° | 202 mm | 12.2 h | 36.3° (2010) | 9.9° (1972) |
| October | 22.0° | 13.7° | 140 mm | 11.1 h | 33.1° (2019) | 3.0° (1983) |
| November | 16.4° | 7.9° | 82 mm | 10.1 h | 26.8° (2023) | -2.2° (1981) |
| December | 10.9° | 2.8° | 60 mm | 9.7 h | 22.8° (2018) | -7.2° (2021) |
How it has changed
Year-by-year signals from 1940 to today.Climate stripes
Annual mean shifted from 1940–1949 to 2016–2025 by +3.1°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: +0.34°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
Sep–Nov is warming fastest: +0.36°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: 34.1 early in the record → 74.3 recently. Frost days: 68 → 17.
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 1994, all-time low in 1947: 39.5°C / -10.3°C.
One point per year — the single hottest and coldest day recorded that year.
Annual rainfall
~1701 mm/year on average. Last decade ran +3% vs that average. Long-term trend: +21 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).