Weather in Bordeaux in February

Shoulder season. February is shoulder season in Bordeaux — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. Highs sit at 11.1 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

February ranks 10 of 12 — near the bottom of Bordeaux's year. July is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 43 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain on 10 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 11.1 °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: 8 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest February day reached 22.8 °C and the coldest night fell to -10.4 °C.

February is moderately variable: 8 mm in the driest year against 127 mm in the wettest, around an average of 57 mm. Roughly two Februarys in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 7.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 85%, which at 11.1 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How February sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 9.9 °C in January, 11.1 here, 14.6 in March. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain has already shifted: 5 days fewer than January had.

Daylight in February

10.4 hours of daylight, gaining 1.4 hours across the month. That is between Bordeaux's extremes of 15.6 and 8.8 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 25.2 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

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

February in Bordeaux versus nearby

If Bordeaux is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Toulouse is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Bilbao is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 4 days more rain.

So: February is a compromise. July is 30 points better and is what Bordeaux 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 Bordeaux

See all twelve months in Bordeaux, or where else to go in February.