Weather in Beijing in December

The month to avoid. Of the twelve, December is the one to avoid. Highs sit at 3.4 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 12 of 12 — near the bottom of Beijing's year. April 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 falls on only 1 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 3.4 °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: 31 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 13.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -16.9 °C.

December is dependably dry, and that reliability is the point: across the twenty years measured, the wettest December on record still only managed 8 mm, and the driest managed 0 mm. There is no meaningful variability to plan around, which makes this one of the few months anywhere that you can build a fixed outdoor itinerary against without a fallback. The wettest single day in twenty years of Decembers brought 4 mm. Rain simply is not the variable that decides this trip — heat, crowds and cost are.

Wind is light at 8.7 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 53%.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 11 °C in November, 3.4 here, 2.6 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Beijing's year — 9.4 hours of daylight against 15 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

Beijing has no sea to moderate it, and it shows: 42.7 °C separates the hottest afternoon of the year from the coldest night. That is a genuinely continental range, and it means summer and winter here are barely the same place.

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.

December in Beijing versus nearby

If Beijing is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Qingdao is a better bet in December — 2.9 °C warmer, 2 days more rain. Xi’an is a better bet in December — 4.8 °C warmer, 1 day more rain.

So: December is a compromise. April is 62 points better and is what Beijing 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 Beijing

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