Serbia weather and the best time to visit

The best month and the wettest month are neighbours

Belgrade's year has two comfortable stretches, May to June and September to October, at 18-26 C by day. The catch sits inside the first one: the national meteorological service records June as the rainiest month of the Serbian year, and February and October as the ones with the least precipitation, and Belgrade's own table agrees, with 76 mm in June against 46 mm in October.

That makes October the quiet favourite. It averages 18 C by day, 9 C at night and the lowest rainfall of the four, and it is the tail of the season rather than the middle of it.

July and August sit just outside the band at 28 C, with warm nights at 18 C and moderate rain. They are perfectly travellable; they are simply not the months the numbers point at.

Winter, snow and the kosava

Snow cover is characteristic of the colder part of the year, from November to March, with the most days of it in January, on the meteorological service's own description. January in Belgrade averages 5 C by day and -2 C at night, so this is a city that gets winter properly rather than as an occasional event.

The other winter fact is a wind. In the colder half of the year the east and south-east wind, the kosava, dominates - a dry, persistent wind off the Carpathian basin that makes a 5 C afternoon feel a good deal less than 5 C. It is the reason a Belgrade January needs a windproof layer more than a thick one.