Weather in Cali in December

Shoulder season. December is shoulder season in Cali — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. The heat itself is manageable at 29.5 °C, but 87% humidity is what you will actually feel.

December ranks 7 of 12 in Cali: 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: 16 wet days but only 2 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 87% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 12 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 34.8 °C and the coldest night fell to 17.8 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 57 mm — roughly 61% of the month's rain in one day.

December is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest December on record still delivered 152 mm against 17 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 93 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 4.3 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity at 87% is the real story though — it is the number that decides how the day feels, not the 29.5 °C.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 29.3 °C in November, 29.5 here, 30.2 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain has already shifted: 5 days fewer than November had.

Daylight in December

Cali sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 11.9 hours in December, against a range of just 0.4 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 10.8 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights. At 758 m the air is thin enough to matter — sun that burns faster than the temperature suggests, and nights that cool off quickly.

How busy it gets

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself.

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

December in Cali versus nearby

If Cali is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Bogotá is a better bet in December — 11 °C cooler, the same number of rain days. Medellín is a better bet in December — 5.4 °C cooler, 7 days more rain.

So: December works, with August the better month by 13 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Cali

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