Weather in Albuquerque in December

Shoulder season. December is shoulder season in Albuquerque — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. Highs sit at 10.3 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 9 of 12 in Albuquerque: past the worst of the year but short of April, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain falls on only 4 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 10.3 °C the difference between a good day and a miserable one is entirely down to what you are wearing.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 25 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 21.3 °C and the coldest night fell to -12.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 26 mm — roughly 153% of the month's rain in one day.

December is moderately variable: 1 mm in the driest year against 47 mm in the wettest, around an average of 17 mm. Roughly two Decembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 7.2 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 55%.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 16.4 °C in November, 10.3 here, 10.5 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Albuquerque's year — 9.8 hours of daylight against 14.5 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 37.3 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. At 1511 m, altitude is doing as much work here as latitude: thinner air means fierce sun by day and heat that leaves the moment it sets.

How busy it gets

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

December in Albuquerque versus nearby

If Albuquerque is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. El Paso is a better bet in December — 4.1 °C warmer, 1 day less rain. Amarillo is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain.

So: December is a compromise. April is 36 points better and is what Albuquerque is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Albuquerque

See all twelve months in Albuquerque, or where else to go in December.