Weather in Honolulu in December

A good month. December is a solid month to be in Honolulu. You should expect rain on 16 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

Honolulu barely has seasons. December scores 72 out of 100 against a best of 81 in May — a gap small enough that the month you choose matters far less here than the week you choose. Worth keeping in perspective: December is the weakest month of Honolulu's year and it is still a perfectly good one. The downside here is small.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 16 wet days but only 2 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. 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 barely swings — 2.5 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 27.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 19.5 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 71 mm — roughly 76% of the month's rain in one day.

December is moderately variable: 15 mm in the driest year against 283 mm in the wettest, around an average of 93 mm. Roughly two Decembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind sits around 18.4 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 77%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 26.7 °C in November, 25.6 here, 25 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: January brings 5 days less of it, so pushing the dates later buys drier weather.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Honolulu's year — 10.8 hours of daylight against 13.4 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 24.8 °C in December — warm enough to stay in as long as you like. The sea peaks at 26.6 °C in September and bottoms out at 23.7 °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 Honolulu versus nearby

Honolulu has no close neighbour worth comparing against, so the useful question is how December there compares with December elsewhere. San Francisco in December is a different proposition entirely — 11.7 °C cooler, and the harder one overall — 13.9 °C and rain on 12 days, against 25.6 °C and 16 here. San Jose in December is a different proposition entirely — 10.4 °C cooler, and the harder one overall — 15.2 °C and rain on 11 days, against 25.6 °C and 16 here.

So: December works, with May the better month by 9 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Honolulu

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