Weather in Little Rock in May

A good month. May is a solid month to be in Little Rock. Highs average 27.2 °C, lows 15.9 °C, and rain falls on 14 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

May ranks 4 of 12 in Little Rock: past the worst of the year but short of October, 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. 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: 7 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 36.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 2 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 73 mm — roughly 49% of the month's rain in one day.

May is moderately variable: 35 mm in the driest year against 341 mm in the wettest, around an average of 150 mm. Roughly two Mays in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 1.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 79%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How May sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 4.4 °C warmer than April, and June adds another 5.5 °C. Late in the month feels noticeably different from the start of it, which is worth knowing if the trip is short.

Daylight in May

May is at or near the longest days of Little Rock's year: 14 hours of daylight, gaining 0.8 hours across the month. Evenings are the real gain — dinner outdoors still happens in full light.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 35.6 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Busy. Popular without being frantic; book the things you care about, improvise the rest.

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

May in Little Rock versus nearby

If Little Rock is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. New South Memphis is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Shreveport is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 3 days less rain.

So: May works, with October the better month by 10 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Little Rock

See all twelve months in Little Rock, or where else to go in May.