Raleigh weather by month — averages, rainfall & climate trends
North Carolina's capital sits on the Piedmont fall line, warm and humid through much of the year but with a weakness for winter ice storms and the tail ends of Atlantic hurricanes in autumn. 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 Raleigh, United States.
Today vs average
−2.6°Ccooler than usual
How it’s changed
Right now
What it's doing today vs the historical average for this date.
Right now
23.5°
29°23°31°23°28°23°24°19°25°21°23°21°28°20°On this date — July 21
Cooler than usual · 2.6°C below the average high
- Record high: 39.5° · 1977
- Record low: 17.6° · 2001
- One year ago: 33.6°
Every July 21 in history — coldest to hottest
Dots show daily highs (top) and lows (bottom) for each July 21 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 Raleigh is sampled from the ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at 35.77°N, 78.64°W, with daily records since 1940.
- Coordinates
- 35.77°N, 78.64°W
- Time zone
- America/New York
- Period
- 1940–2026
- Data source
- ERA5 (ECMWF)
Last 30 days
22 of the last 30 days were warmer than the historical average for that date. Average difference: +1.1°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
Raleigh lies where the rolling Piedmont gives way to the flatter coastal plain in central North Carolina, along the geological fall line. Its climate is humid subtropical (Köppen Cfa), with hot, humid summers and cool winters. The winters are usually manageable, but every so often a storm tracks just right and glazes the region in freezing rain and sleet, the most disruptive weather the city sees.
From late summer into autumn the bigger threat arrives from the tropics. Hurricane Fran brought down trees across the city in 1996, and Hurricane Floyd dumped record rainfall as it passed in 1999. Tornadoes are infrequent here, but they can be violent when they do strike, as an EF3 was when it tore through downtown and the northeast side in April 2011.
July brings the year's peak warmth: daily means of 26.0°C, with afternoons typically reaching 31.2°C. On about 95 nights a year, the temperature never drops below 20°C. The coolest month is January, when daily means fall to about 5.1°C and overnight lows sit around 1.0°C. Around 35 days a year dip below freezing.
In total, Raleigh averages about 1156 mm of precipitation a year; July is usually the wettest month (128 mm) and October the driest (77 mm).
Over the full record (since 1940), the annual mean temperature in Raleigh has risen by 1.2°C between its first decade and its last. The count of days past 30°C has risen from roughly 50 a year to 80 between the record's first and last decades.
Climate graph (climograph)
July is the warmest month, January the coolest — a yearly swing of 21°C. Wettest month: July (~128 mm). Whole year averages ~1156 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.
Raleigh 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 | 10.5° | 1.0° | 92 mm | 9.8 h | 25.1° (2022) | -19.8° (1985) |
| February | 12.5° | 2.0° | 88 mm | 10.7 h | 27.7° (1989) | -18.4° (1996) |
| March | 16.9° | 5.7° | 103 mm | 11.7 h | 31.5° (1968) | -9.5° (1980) |
| April | 22.3° | 10.8° | 87 mm | 12.9 h | 36.0° (1981) | -3.1° (2007) |
| May | 26.2° | 15.5° | 92 mm | 13.9 h | 36.9° (2011) | 2.3° (1956) |
| June | 29.8° | 19.7° | 98 mm | 14.4 h | 41.5° (2012) | 7.4° (1972) |
| July | 31.2° | 21.9° | 128 mm | 14.2 h | 41.5° (1977) | 13.2° (1988) |
| August | 30.2° | 21.2° | 120 mm | 13.4 h | 40.6° (1988) | 11.8° (1965) |
| September | 27.2° | 17.9° | 105 mm | 12.2 h | 37.8° (1954) | 5.4° (1950) |
| October | 22.1° | 11.6° | 77 mm | 11.1 h | 36.5° (2019) | -4.3° (1962) |
| November | 16.9° | 6.3° | 80 mm | 10.1 h | 29.2° (1950) | -9.4° (1970) |
| December | 12.0° | 2.4° | 87 mm | 9.6 h | 26.6° (2007) | -16.0° (1958) |
How it has changed
Year-by-year signals from 1940 to today.Climate stripes
Annual mean shifted from 1940–1949 to 2016–2025 by +1.2°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: +0.15°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
Mar–May is warming fastest: +0.18°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: 48.6 early in the record → 81.9 recently. Frost days: 41 → 37.
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 2012, all-time low in 1985: 41.5°C / -19.8°C.
One point per year — the single hottest and coldest day recorded that year.
Annual rainfall
~1156 mm/year on average. Last decade ran +9% vs that average. Long-term trend: +12 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).