Cyprus sells itself as a beach destination, and its capital has none. Nicosia sits in the middle of the island, at 220 metres of altitude, in the middle of an open plain. That position explains practically its whole climate table, and it also explains why its summer resembles no other Mediterranean capital's.
01 An island without a sea
The figures from the reference station, at 162 metres and in the city itself, make it plain. July's average high is 37.5 degrees and August's 37.4. January's average low is 5.7 and February's 5.8. Between January's low and July's high there are almost 32 degrees of range on an eastern Mediterranean island.
02 August: 1.2 millimetres
Summer here is neither rainy nor humid: it is dry in an almost absolute way. August totals 1.2 millimetres of precipitation in the whole month and July 4.9. June stays at 14.5. That is, between June and August some 20 millimetres fall in total, which in many European cities falls in one afternoon.
And the sun is relentless: 386 hours in July, 368 in June and 364 in August. To get a sense of it, 386 hours across 31 days is twelve and a half hours of sunshine a day. In a city with no breeze and no natural shade, that turns the middle hours into lost time for practical purposes.
In August 1.2 millimetres of rain fall and there are 364 hours of sun. It is not a dry month: it is a month without water.
03 Winter is the wet season
All the year's rain — 330 millimetres, a low figure even for the Mediterranean — falls between November and March. December is the wettest month with 64.1 millimetres, followed by January with 53.2 and February with 41.5. It is little water in absolute terms, but it is practically all there is.
Winter is not cold in the European sense either, but it surprises anyone arriving expecting a temperate island. January has a high of 15.8 degrees — a pleasant day — and a low of 5.7, and the absolute cold record is −2.9 degrees. You need a coat for the evening, and much accommodation is not designed to heat well.
04 Beware of September
There is one figure that always gets overlooked and is worth keeping in mind when booking. The absolute heat record of the series belongs neither to July nor August: it belongs to September, at 46.2 degrees. That is, the month that looks transitional in the table — an average high of 34.0, already easing — is also the one that has produced the highest reading ever recorded.
The practical lesson is that averages here hide episodes. In a dry climate with no nearby sea, a warm air mass can push the temperature ten degrees above the monthly average for several days in a row, and that can happen any time between May and September. It is worth checking the short-range forecast and not only the table.
05 The verdict
April, by a clear margin. It combines a high of 24.7 degrees, a low of 10.8, only 21.1 millimetres of rain and 272 hours of sun: you can walk all day, you do not need to take shelter at midday and the nights stay cool. March works just as well if you prefer less heat and do not mind ten degrees less on the high.
In autumn, October and November are the other window: highs of 29.2 and 22.7 degrees with little rain. And what to avoid without argument is June to August, not for discomfort but by arithmetic: at 37 degrees, 386 hours of sun a month and a city you cover on foot, the usable day shrinks to the first and last hours.
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