Singapore
Long-term averages for Singapore: the mean daily high, the mean overnight low and the mean monthly rainfall across 30 years of ERA5 reanalysis data (1995–2024).
Show the monthly table
| Month | Day (°C) | Night (°C) | Rain (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 28 | 24 | 220 |
| February | 29 | 24 | 135 |
| March | 29 | 24 | 214 |
| April | 29 | 25 | 259 |
| May | 29 | 25 | 237 |
| June | 29 | 25 | 209 |
| July | 29 | 25 | 179 |
| August | 29 | 25 | 199 |
| September | 29 | 25 | 187 |
| October | 29 | 25 | 265 |
| November | 29 | 24 | 338 |
| December | 28 | 24 | 316 |
What the numbers mean for a trip
Singapore has no season worth planning around: 28-29 °C every month. What changes is the rain - November to January is the wet end, February the driest month.
- There is no cool season and no bad month. Daytime highs sit at 28-29 °C all year and nights at 24-25 °C; the temperature table is almost a flat line.
- The rain is the only variable, and even that is a matter of degree: November to January is the wet end of the year, February the driest month.
- Rain here is short and violent, not all-day. Afternoon and evening thunderstorms build from the heat and the sea breeze, and pass.
- Humidity is the thing visitors underestimate - around 82% as an annual mean, above 90% before dawn, falling to about 60% by mid-afternoon.
- Pack for indoors as well as out. Air conditioning is set cold in malls, on the MRT and in offices, and a light layer is worth carrying in 30 °C heat.
The seasons are monsoons, not temperatures
The Meteorological Service Singapore divides the year into the Northeast Monsoon, December to early March, and the Southwest Monsoon, June to September, with inter-monsoon periods between them. Neither changes what you wear. Night temperatures usually stay in the 23-25 °C band and daytime highs do not normally pass 31-33 °C, which is as stable a climate as any capital gets.
What the monsoons change is when it rains and how. November to January is the wettest stretch - the ERA5 table above puts November at 338 mm and December at 316 mm - and February is the driest month, at 135 mm. Even the driest month here would count as a wet one almost anywhere in Europe.
How the rain actually falls
Two systems do most of it:
- Afternoon and evening thunderstorms, driven by strong surface heating and the sea breeze. These are the classic Singapore downpour: sudden, heavy, over in an hour.
- Sumatra squalls during the Southwest Monsoon - an organised line of thunderstorms that crosses the island from the west, usually in the early hours.
The practical consequence is that a forecast of rain is not a reason to change a plan; it is a reason to have a covered fallback for an hour. Almost the entire city is walkable under cover, which is not an accident of architecture.
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