Weather in Gasteiz / Vitoria in January

A hard month. January is a hard month in Gasteiz / Vitoria, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 9 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

January ranks 12 of 12 — near the bottom of Gasteiz / Vitoria's year. July is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 49 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain on 16 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 9 °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: 7 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest January day reached 18.9 °C and the coldest night fell to -6.3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 52 mm — roughly 49% of the month's rain in one day.

January is moderately variable: 27 mm in the driest year against 242 mm in the wettest, around an average of 106 mm. Roughly two Januarys in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 8.4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 88%, which at 9 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How January sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 9.7 °C in December, 9 here, 9.7 in February. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in January

January sits at the dark end of Gasteiz / Vitoria's year — 9.4 hours of daylight against 15.3 at midsummer, gaining 0.8 hours across the month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 22.7 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

How busy it gets

Off season. The genuine off season: cheapest by a distance, with the caveat that some tours and restaurants close entirely.

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

January in Gasteiz / Vitoria versus nearby

If Gasteiz / Vitoria is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Bilbao is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.5 °C warmer, 1 day more rain. Zaragoza is a better bet in January — 3.9 °C warmer, 10 days less rain.

So: January is a compromise. July is 49 points better and is what Gasteiz / Vitoria 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 Gasteiz / Vitoria

See all twelve months in Gasteiz / Vitoria, or where else to go in January.