Weather in Kolkata in October

Shoulder season. October is shoulder season in Kolkata — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. The heat itself is manageable at 29.8 °C, but 84% humidity is what you will actually feel.

October ranks 5 of 12 in Kolkata: past the worst of the year but short of December, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is wet-season rain: 14 wet days and 5 genuinely heavy ones, which in this climate means concentrated downpours rather than all-day grey. The pattern is usually a clear morning and a loud afternoon, so front-load the day and stop fighting the 3pm hour. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 84% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 14 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest October day reached 32.8 °C and the coldest night fell to 13.7 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 99 mm — roughly 68% of the month's rain in one day.

October is moderately variable: 24 mm in the driest year against 367 mm in the wettest, around an average of 146 mm. Roughly two Octobers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 5.2 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 84%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How October sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.5 °C in September, 29.8 here, 27.4 in November. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: November brings 12 days less of it, so pushing the dates later buys drier weather.

Daylight in October

11.7 hours of daylight, losing 0.6 hours across the month. That is between Kolkata's extremes of 13.5 and 10.8 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 28.3 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

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

October in Kolkata versus nearby

If Kolkata is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Jamshedpur is a better bet in October — within a degree on temperature, 3 days less rain. Ranchi is a better bet in October — 3.2 °C cooler, 5 days less rain.

So: October is a compromise. December is 44 points better and is what Kolkata 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 Kolkata

See all twelve months in Kolkata, or where else to go in October.