Best time to visit Louisville

Louisville is a city of two halves. October scores 80 and January scores 25 — a 55-point swing, which is the difference between a holiday and an endurance test. The month you pick matters more here than almost anywhere. The good window runs September to October — 2 months within ten points of the best.

August is the warmest month at 30.5 °C and January the coolest at 4.2 °C — a 26.3 °C spread across the year. Around 50 days a year top 30 °C, concentrated in August and the months either side. At the other end, 102 nights a year fall below freezing: the winter here is a real one.

There is a real wet season here. May to July carry the rain — up to 15 wet days in a month — while January, February, September, October and November drop as low as 9. That 6-day gap is the biggest single difference between a good month and a bad one in Louisville, and it moves further than the temperature does.

Daylight runs from 9.5 hours in winter to 14.8 in summer, enough to notice on a sightseeing itinerary.

The three strongest months are October, September, April. The one to think twice about is January. Each month below has its own page with rainfall reliability, extremes, daylight and crowd levels.

Louisville month by month