Wellington month by month, at a glance
Hover each month for the summary. Click to pin it.
Wellington has an oceanic climate without extremes: average highs of 20.6 degrees in the warmest month and 11.7 in the coldest, some 1,320 millimetres of rain a year and over 2,000 hours of sunshine. On those numbers, any month looks reasonable. And they are, if temperature is the criterion. The problem is that here the criterion is wind.
01 The windiest city in the world
Wellington sits in the latitude of the Roaring Forties and at the mouth of Cook Strait, the passage separating New Zealand's two main islands. The westerly funnels through there and accelerates between the mountains on either side.
The result is an annual average wind speed of about 27 kilometres per hour, the highest of any major city in the world. The Kelburn station records around 173 days a year with gusts above 60 kilometres per hour, and some 22 days with sustained mean wind above that same figure.
The strongest gust recorded at Kelburn was 198 kilometres per hour, on 10 April 1968, during the storm that sank the ferry Wahine at the harbour mouth. In the 1960s an apartment block built on an exposed ridge at Roseneath had to redesign its doors: in a strong north-westerly, the pressure made the balcony doors impossible to open.
Key moments at a glance
55 mm and 7 rain days; the year's highest average maximum.
232 hours of sunshine and 14.8 hours of daylight.
147 mm and an average high of 11.7 degrees.
Good sunshine, but sustained wind peaks.
02 What the months say
The southern summer is by far the best stretch. February is the driest month of the year at 55 millimetres over seven rain days; January adds 79 millimetres and 232 hours of sunshine, the annual maximum; March still gives 204 hours of sun and a hundred millimetres of water.
Winter shows up in the light more than on the thermometer. June has only 101 hours of sunshine in the whole month and 9.2 hours of daylight a day, and July is the wettest, with 147 millimetres and average highs of 11.7 degrees. Nothing extreme, but very grey.
Spring is deceptive. October and November bring good sunshine — 193 and 212 hours respectively — and little rain, but they are also the year's stretch of strongest sustained wind. An October day can be splendid and still impossible to walk along the waterfront.
03 The southerly and the northerly
The wind here has two personalities. In summer the northerly and north-westerly dominate, warm and loud; in winter the southerly and south-westerly come in, straight off the Antarctic sea.
The switch between them is the most characteristic feature of the local weather: a mild, still morning can turn into a cold, blustery afternoon within hours, with a temperature drop that appears in no monthly average.
The practical consequence is simple and holds for all twelve months: always go out with a windproof layer, even if the day started clear. What it feels like falls much further than what the thermometer says.
04 When the wind decides for you
The wind is not only discomfort: it affects logistics. The airport sits on a narrow isthmus between two stretches of water and its crosswind approaches are famous among pilots; diversions and delays are part of the landscape.
The ferry across Cook Strait to the South Island, one of the country's finest crossings, is cancelled in heavy weather. If it is part of your route, leave a day of slack and do not chain it to a flight on the same day.
Frosts are common in the hill suburbs and the Hutt Valley between May and September, though snow at sea level is very rare: isolated episodes are remembered in 2011 and in August 2026.
05 What to pack, and in short
A compact waterproof windbreaker, thin layers, shoes with grip for the slopes and the stairways, and no umbrella: they do not survive here and everyone knows it. For long hair, a tie.
In short: January to March is the best window, February at the front; December works well; June to August the city turns grey and short; and September to November the sun is good but the wind rules. Whichever month you pick, the day's plan has to be changeable by noon.
