Best time to visit Detroit

Detroit is a city of two halves. September scores 80 and January scores 21 — a 59-point swing, which is the difference between a holiday and an endurance test. The month you pick matters more here than almost anywhere. The good window runs May to September — 5 months within ten points of the best.

July is the warmest month at 27.6 °C and January the coolest at -1 °C — a 28.6 °C spread across the year. At the other end, 133 nights a year fall below freezing: the winter here is a real one.

There is a real wet season here. May to July carry the rain — up to 15 wet days in a month — while January, February, March and November drop as low as 9. That 6-day gap is the biggest single difference between a good month and a bad one in Detroit, and it moves further than the temperature does.

Daylight runs from 9.1 hours in winter to 15.3 in summer, enough to notice on a sightseeing itinerary.

The three strongest months are September, August, June. The one to think twice about is January. Each month below has its own page with rainfall reliability, extremes, daylight and crowd levels.

Detroit month by month