Weather in Buffalo in May

A good month. May is a solid month to be in Buffalo. Highs average 18.5 °C, lows 8.2 °C, and rain falls on 14 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

May ranks 5 of 12 in Buffalo: past the worst of the year but short of August, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 14 wet days but only 2 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average May reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 31.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -1.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 34 mm — roughly 40% of the month's rain in one day.

May is moderately variable: 27 mm in the driest year against 158 mm in the wettest, around an average of 85 mm. Roughly two Mays in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 4.4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 77%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How May sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 6.8 °C warmer than April, and June adds another 5.2 °C. Late in the month feels noticeably different from the start of it, which is worth knowing if the trip is short.

Daylight in May

14.6 hours of daylight, gaining 1 hours across the month. That is between Buffalo's extremes of 15.3 and 9 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 34.1 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

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

May in Buffalo versus nearby

If Buffalo is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Hamilton is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain. Toronto is the weaker option in May — 4 °C cooler, 1 day more rain.

So: May is effectively as good as it gets here — 5 points behind August, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Buffalo

See all twelve months in Buffalo, or where else to go in May.