Himachal Pradesh month by month — at a glance
Hover each month for the summary. Click to pin it.
Himachal Pradesh does not have one climate: it has two calendars that barely touch. In Shimla, the state capital, 351 millimetres of rain fall in August. In Spiti, a few days away by road, the average for a whole year is around 50. That gap, sevenfold, decides what you will see in each month and which valley to head for.
01 The monsoon splits the state in two
Shimla's 1991–2020 averages draw a sharp curve: 80 millimetres in January, 58 in April, 192 in June, 328 in July and 351 in August, then falling to 30 in October and 14 in November. More than half of the year's water falls in three months. Manali, further north, follows the same script on a different scale: 190 millimetres in July and 192 in August, and barely 36 and 28 in October and November.
But the south-west monsoon, which reaches these valleys around the end of June and withdraws at the end of September, has a limit. Spiti lies in the rain shadow of the range: the mountains drop the moisture before it arrives, and the area gets around 50 millimetres a year and under two metres of snow. In the same week of August one valley is wrapped in cloud and another has blue sky over a barren slope.
Key moments at a glance
351 mm and 16 rainy days in Shimla; 192 mm and 14 days in Manali. The landscape closes in cloud.
30 mm and 2 rainy days in Shimla and 36 mm in Manali. Highs of 19 and 22 °C, with the air rinsed clean.
42 cm of snow on average in Shimla and sub-zero lows in Manali. Clean cold and quiet streets.
Manali has its wet peak of the year in March: 157 mm. Shimla keeps only 7 cm of snow.
02 July and August: the green and the apples
The monsoon has a thermal consequence that surprises: Shimla is cooler in July (21.3 °C high) than in June (23.8 °C). Cloud takes a couple of degrees off the thermometer just as the rain peaks. In Manali the opposite happens with the lows, which rise to 16 °C in July and August, the mildest nights of the year.
It is also the fruit season. According to agricultural records and the regional press, the apple harvest starts around mid-July in the Shimla, Rohru and Kullu areas and runs until November depending on variety and altitude; Kinnaur, higher up, starts later, around September. The same downpour that closes the viewpoints feeds the orchards in the photograph. In summer these valleys are understood by what grows, not by what you can see in the distance.
03 October and November: the dry window
When the monsoon withdraws, the drop is abrupt. Shimla goes from 165 millimetres in September to 30 in October and 14 in November, with 2.2 and 1 rainy days. In Manali, October and November add up to just 64 millimetres and 4 rainy days, and the highs are still 21.6 and 17.3 °C. This is the part of the year when the atmosphere clears and the mountain comes back into view.
The price is the cold at night: in Manali the mean low falls from 6.3 °C in October to 2.6 °C in November. It is a short window that closes at both ends, between the rain that leaves and the snow that arrives.
The monsoon does not leave slowly: it switches off between September and October, and the curtain goes up with it.
04 December to February: when rain turns to snow
According to the Shimla station averages, January brings 42 centimetres of snow and February 43, over about 4 snowy days each month; the year totals 99 centimetres. It is mountain-town snow, intermittent, which arrives, covers the streets and melts again. The recent record was 38.6 centimetres on 18 January 2013, in a two-day total of 63.6.
Manali is colder and wetter than the map suggests: the mean low in January is -1.1 °C, with a record of -11.6 °C in 1988, and winter is unusually rainy for India, with 110 millimetres in February. Snow falls mostly between December and early March. On the calendar, this is the moment when the state changes texture: what in August was green fog is now dry air and low light.
05 The north you visit when the south is wet
The inversion of the calendar is the most useful part for planning. While the Kullu Valley or Shimla take the rain, Spiti lives its summer: in Kaza, at 3,650 metres, July is the warmest month, with an average of around 15 °C, although nights can drop to freezing. It is the month when the high-altitude desert is most liveable. In winter, by contrast, January brings lows near -30 °C.
The access calendar reinforces the idea. The Leh–Manali road is open for about five months, June to October, and is closed from November to March because of snow; the Manali–Kaza route over the Kunzum is a summer one, and Spiti is cut off for five to six months from that side. It is a seasonal fact, not a route guide: the north opens just when the south closes under the rain.
06 How to read the calendar
Himachal Pradesh has no best month; it has three states of the same valley. In July and August it is green, wet and fruit-laden; in October and November, dry and sharp; from December to February, white and cold. And, in parallel, Spiti has its summer when the south is under water.
If you want to understand what the rain does in the Himalaya, go in August and look at the orchards. If you want to see the mountains, wait for October. And if you are drawn to snow in a hill town, January in Shimla has it. The one thing that does not change in any month is this: the question is not when it rains least, but which valley you want to see when it rains.
