Weather in Des Moines in May

A good month. May is a solid month to be in Des Moines. Highs average 22.4 °C, lows 10.5 °C, and rain falls on 14 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

May ranks 3 of 12 in Des Moines. Only September scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 14 days, 4 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

The averages here are honest — no hidden extremes worth planning around. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 36.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -1.6 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 44 mm — roughly 37% of the month's rain in one day.

May is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest May on record still delivered 216 mm against 50 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 120 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 12 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 73%.

How May sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 5.3 °C warmer than April, and June adds another 5.4 °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

14.5 hours of daylight, gaining 1 hours across the month. That is between Des Moines's extremes of 15.2 and 9.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Des Moines has no sea to moderate it, and it shows: 40.3 °C separates the hottest afternoon of the year from the coldest night. That is a genuinely continental range, and it means summer and winter here are barely the same place.

How busy it gets

Busy. Popular without being frantic; book the things you care about, improvise the rest.

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

May in Des Moines versus nearby

If Des Moines is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Omaha is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain. Kansas City is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days.

So: May works, with September the better month by 8 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Des Moines

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