Asunción month by month, at a glance
Hover each month for the summary. Click to pin it.
Asunción's good season is easy to identify: May to August. The hard part is packing, because in those same months the thermometer has read thirty-five degrees and has also dropped below zero.
01 Summer is not a comfortable option
From December to February the average high runs from 32.8 to 34 degrees, with nights that do not drop below 22. January's absolute record stands at 42.2 degrees and October's reaches 43.
Add the rain: November gathers 195 millimetres and December 176.5. It does not rain many days — eight a month — but when it does it comes down hard, and the heat lets up neither before nor after.
You can travel in summer, of course, but it demands reorganising the whole day around shade: out very early, gone between eleven and five, and out again at dusk.
Key moments at a glance
An average high of 21.9 and four rainy days in the whole month.
38.7 mm and 223 hours of sun, with the lapachos in bloom.
195 mm, the year's maximum, with highs of 31.2 degrees.
34 degrees on average, a record of 42.2 and nights of 23.1.
02 The winter, which is not a winter
July is the mildest month: an average high of 21.9 degrees and a low of 13.6. In terms of comfort for walking it is, by some distance, the best time of the year.
But the average deceives. June has recorded 1.2 degrees below zero and July 0.6 below; in that same July the heat record stands at 35.6 degrees, and August has reached 39.4.
That swing is the most useful thing to know: here winter is neither cold nor warm, it is variable. You can get a week of short sleeves and three days later genuinely need a coat at night.
03 What to pack for the good season
The rule is layers. A long-sleeved shirt and something light for the day, and a proper jacket for nights and early mornings, above all between June and August.
Watch out for a common trap: much of the accommodation and many restaurants are designed for heat, not cold, so a cool day feels sharper indoors than out. A jumper takes little space and is welcome here.
And sun protection all year. Even in July there are 195 hours of sun a month, and in August it rises to 223: the sun does not take the winter off.
In Asunción you do not choose a month by the rain: you choose by how much heat you are willing to take.
04 The river has a season too
The Paraguay River changes level a great deal through the year, and with it the look of the waterfront: sandbanks that emerge, shores that pull back and a strip of river beach that is not always there.
If the city beside the water interests you, the dry months are also the ones with fewest mosquitoes and the pleasantest late afternoons for walking the costanera.
And one calendar detail worth having: around August and September the lapachos flower, and the city fills with entire trees in pink and yellow for a couple of weeks.
05 In short
Go from May to August, with July and August the best bet for temperature and dryness. March, April, September and October are acceptable. Avoid November to February unless extreme heat does not bother you.
