Weather in Fukuoka in December

Shoulder season. December is shoulder season in Fukuoka — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. Highs sit at 11.4 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 9 of 12 in Fukuoka: past the worst of the year but short of October, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 10 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 11.4 °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: 3 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 24.3 °C and the coldest night fell to -4.5 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 85 mm — roughly 108% 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 132 mm against 23 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 79 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 80%, which at 11.4 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How December sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 6 °C cooler than November, with January dropping another 2.1 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Fukuoka's year — 9.9 hours of daylight against 14.4 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 18 °C in December — swimmable, but it takes a moment to commit. The sea peaks at 27.4 °C in August and bottoms out at 14.4 °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

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 Fukuoka versus nearby

If Fukuoka is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Kitakyushu is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain. Hiroshima is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 2 days more rain.

So: December is a compromise. October is 29 points better and is what Fukuoka 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 Fukuoka

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