Weather in Kyoto in December

A hard month. December is a hard month in Kyoto, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 10.1 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 10 of 12 — near the bottom of Kyoto's year. May is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 47 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 18 wet days but only 2 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 10.1 °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: 4 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 22.7 °C and the coldest night fell to -2.9 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 58 mm — roughly 53% 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 145 mm against 52 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 109 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 9.3 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 85%, which at 10.1 °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: 5.9 °C cooler than November, with January dropping another 2.8 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip. Rain has already shifted: 6 days more than November had.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Kyoto's year — 9.8 hours of daylight against 14.5 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 30.3 °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.

December in Kyoto versus nearby

If Kyoto is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Osaka is a better bet in December — within a degree on temperature, 9 days less rain. Hamamatsu is a better bet in December — 3.1 °C warmer, 11 days less rain.

So: December is a compromise. May is 38 points better and is what Kyoto 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 Kyoto

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