Weather in Lisbon in October

Prime time. If you get to pick your dates, October is the one. Highs average 20.4 °C, lows 16.5 °C, and rain falls on 11 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

October ranks 6 of 12 in Lisbon: past the worst of the year but short of July, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 11 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. 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 October reaches 30 °C; the day barely swings — 4 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest October day reached 26.1 °C and the coldest night fell to 11.1 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 71 mm — roughly 90% of the month's rain in one day.

October is moderately variable: 14 mm in the driest year against 159 mm in the wettest, around an average of 79 mm. Roughly two Octobers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 15.2 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 81%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How October sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 1.9 °C cooler than September, with November dropping another 3.3 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip. Rain has already shifted: 6 days more than September had.

Daylight in October

11.3 hours of daylight, losing 1.2 hours across the month. That is between Lisbon's extremes of 14.9 and 9.5 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 20.2 °C in October — swimmable, but it takes a moment to commit. This is the warmest the water gets all year.

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 Lisbon versus nearby

If Lisbon is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Évora is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.8 °C warmer, 1 day less rain. Leiria is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.3 °C warmer, the same number of rain days.

So: October is a compromise. July is 20 points better and is what Lisbon 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 Lisbon

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