Weather in Bar Harbor in January

The month to avoid. January is the month most people should skip in Bar Harbor. Highs sit at -1.1 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

January ranks 10 of 12 — near the bottom of Bar Harbor's year. August is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 62 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain on 10 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at -1.1 °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: 29 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest January day reached 12.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -22.8 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 60 mm — roughly 65% of the month's rain in one day.

January is moderately variable: 15 mm in the driest year against 220 mm in the wettest, around an average of 92 mm. Roughly two Januarys in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 9.1 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 89%, which at -1.1 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How January sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 2.4 °C in December, -1.1 here, -0.3 in February. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in January

January sits at the dark end of Bar Harbor's year — 9.2 hours of daylight against 15.5 at midsummer, gaining 0.8 hours across the month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 6 °C in January — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 15.1 °C in August and bottoms out at 3.8 °C — water lags the air by a month or two, which is why the best swimming often comes after the best weather.

How busy it gets

Off season. The genuine off season: cheapest by a distance, with the caveat that some tours and restaurants close entirely.

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

January in Bar Harbor versus nearby

If Bar Harbor is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Sherbrooke is close enough to be a coin toss — 4.7 °C cooler, 5 days more rain. Boston is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain.

So: January is a compromise. August is 60 points better and is what Bar Harbor 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 Bar Harbor

See all twelve months in Bar Harbor, or where else to go in January.