Weather in Burnie in October

Shoulder season. October is shoulder season in Burnie — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. Highs sit at 14.6 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

October ranks 7 of 12 in Burnie: past the worst of the year but short of February, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 14 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 14.6 °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: the day barely swings — 5.6 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest October day reached 20.5 °C and the coldest night fell to 4.3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 37 mm — roughly 41% of the month's rain in one day.

October is moderately variable: 11 mm in the driest year against 168 mm in the wettest, around an average of 91 mm. Roughly two Octobers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 9.8 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 82%, which at 14.6 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How October sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 1.6 °C warmer than September, and November adds another 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 October

13.1 hours of daylight, gaining 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Burnie's extremes of 15.1 and 9.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 13.1 °C in October — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 18.3 °C in February and bottoms out at 12.5 °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

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.

October in Burnie versus nearby

If Burnie is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Devonport is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 4 days less rain. Launceston is a better bet in October — 2.6 °C warmer, 3 days less rain.

So: October is a compromise. February is 30 points better and is what Burnie 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 Burnie

See all twelve months in Burnie, or where else to go in October.