The year in Funchal, month by month
All the figures are Funchal's, on the south coast: 817.7 millimetres of rain a year over 80.9 days and 2,316 hours of sunshine, with an annual mean around 20 degrees. The scoring crosses three things: how much water falls, how much light there is and how many people there are.
Choosing the month for a trip usually means avoiding cold or heat. In Madeira that exercise is useless, because there is neither. The year's lowest average high is 19.8 degrees and the highest 26.8. Between the best and the worst month there are seven degrees.
The lows are just as flat: from 14.1 degrees in February to 20.9 in August. The city's annual mean is around 20 degrees, making it the warmest in Portugal. If the thermometer tells you nothing, you have to look at other things: rain, light and, above all, altitude.
01 Seven degrees between the best and worst month
It is worth pausing on how unusual that figure is. In a Mediterranean city on the mainland the difference between January's high and August's is usually fifteen to eighteen degrees. Here it is seven, and not because summer is weak but because winter does not exist.
The cause is the sea. The island sits in the middle of the Atlantic, 805 kilometres from mainland Portugal and 520 from Morocco, with the Canary and Gulf Stream currents passing by. The water takes months to warm and months to cool, and the air above it moves with it.
Extremes exist but they are very rare exceptions: the city has recorded 38.5 degrees in August and 7.4 in February. Between those two numbers sit eighty years of measurements and no ordinary week of travel.
02 What does change is the rain
Here is the useful variable. Funchal accumulates 817.7 millimetres a year over 80.9 days, and that total is very unevenly spread. July gets 3.7 millimetres over 0.9 rainy days. December gets 135.3 over 12.0 days.
It is a classic Mediterranean distribution, with a dry summer and a wet winter, and indeed the city's climate is classified as hot-summer Mediterranean. The difference from the actual Mediterranean is that the wet winter here still has highs of twenty degrees.
Light follows the same curve, though more gently: 237 hours of sunshine in August and 151 in December, out of an annual total of 2,316. The drop from December to August is under three hours a day, another small figure for what you might expect.
03 The other variable is altitude
And now the figure that reorders the trip. The Pico do Areeiro station, at 1,610 metres, records annual precipitation of 2,927.8 millimetres: three and a half times Funchal's. And its monthly mean temperature runs from 5.5 degrees in January to 14.8 in August.
The summit is between eight and twelve degrees colder than the capital, and its record low is −6.0 degrees, recorded in April. Snow is possible at the summit between January and March. All of that forty minutes by car from a city where it never drops below fourteen.
That part of the island also has its own weather. A clear day in Funchal is perfectly compatible with a summit wrapped in cloud, and the reverse: there are mornings when the Areeiro viewpoint stands above a sea of cloud covering the whole coast.
The year's four stretches
From 83.4 to 135.3 millimetres a month, over 8.3 to 12.0 days, with sunshine between 151 and 198 hours. Highs stay at 19.8 to 20.4 degrees: it is never cold, but this is the year's wettest and darkest stretch.
61.8, 44.5 and 16.8 millimetres, with rainy days falling from 6.6 to 2.4 and sunshine between 194 and 209 hours. Highs of 20.9 to 23.8 degrees. The stretch with the best balance of rain, light and temperature.
3.7, 4.0 and 44.9 millimetres, with 233, 237 and 211 hours of sunshine. Highs of 25.6 to 26.8 degrees and the sea at its warmest. This is the high season and the only stretch with real heat.
117.9 and 111.7 millimetres over 9.7 and 10.5 days. Rain multiplies thirtyfold against July in a single month, yet highs remain at 25.1 and 22.6 degrees and sunshine gives 194 and 166 hours.
04 And the third is which side you are on
The ridge crosses the island from east to west and blocks the moist northerly winds. All the figures above are from the south coast. On the northern slope precipitation reaches up to 2,800 millimetres a year, and low cloud is the norm much of the time.
The practical consequence is that the question 'when do I go?' matters less than 'where do I go that day?'. With a bad forecast for the north you can still have a whole afternoon of sun in the south, and vice versa. On an island of 801 square kilometres that is a luxury.
05 July and August: 3.7 and 4.0 millimetres
The two summer months deserve a paragraph of their own for how extreme they are in the rain column. July gets 3.7 millimetres over 0.9 days and August 4.0 over 1.4. In other words: in two months less water falls than on a single bad December day.
They are also the months with the most light — 233 and 237 hours — and the most heat, with average highs of 25.6 and 26.8 degrees. If you want beach and mild sea, that is the window, along with September, when the water is at its warmest.
The price is double. It is the high season, with what that means for prices and crowds, and it is when the high-ground paths receive the most people: in the Areeiro area up to a thousand people a day can pass through at peak times.
06 How to choose the month
If you can go only once and want to walk, go in May: 44.5 millimetres over 5.2 days, 209 hours of sunshine and average highs of 22.1 degrees. It is the year's best crossing of little rain, long light and comfortable temperature, and it still falls outside the high season.
June works just as well and is even drier: 16.8 millimetres over 2.4 days. April is the alternative if you want the countryside at its best, with 61.8 millimetres over 6.6 days. And September is the month for anyone coming for the sea, with 44.9 millimetres and the water at its peak.
And if you go in winter, go knowing what you are buying: 98.7 to 135.3 millimetres a month, 151 to 167 hours of sunshine and highs of 19.8 to 20.8 degrees. You will not be cold, but you should count on rain and on a covered summit. In exchange, it is the only season in which you can be in Europe at twenty degrees in January, and that is exactly why half of Europe comes here in those months.
