Weather in Delhi in December

Prime time. If you get to pick your dates, December is the one. Highs average 23.8 °C, lows 8.6 °C, and rain falls on 1 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

December is the highest-scoring month of the twelve. The nearest rival is January, and the month at the other end of the year is July.

Rain falls on only 1 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. 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 December reaches 30 °C; the day swings 15.2 °C from low to high, which means one bag has to cover both. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 29.7 °C and the coldest night fell to 0.3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 26 mm — roughly 325% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. December rainfall has ranged from 0 mm to 39 mm across the twenty years measured — a 39 mm spread around an average of 8 mm. The average is real but almost no individual December looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 6.1 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 42%.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 28.4 °C in November, 23.8 here, 22.3 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Delhi's year — 10.3 hours of daylight against 14 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 35.8 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. Within December itself the daily swing is 15.2 °C, so mornings and afternoons need different clothes.

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.

December in Delhi versus nearby

If Delhi is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Agra is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Rishīkesh is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain.

So: December is the answer for Delhi. If it is booked out or priced out, January is the next best thing at 3 points behind, and July is the month to keep off the shortlist.

Every month in Delhi

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