Best time to visit Minneapolis

Minneapolis is a city of two halves. September scores 80 and December scores 27 — a 53-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 May to September — 5 months within ten points of the best.

July is the warmest month at 28.5 °C and January the coolest at -5.6 °C — a 34.1 °C spread across the year. At the other end, 161 nights a year fall below freezing: the winter here is a real one.

There is a real wet season here. May, June and August carry the rain — up to 14 wet days in a month — while January, February, November and December drop as low as 4. That 10-day gap is the biggest single difference between a good month and a bad one in Minneapolis, and it moves further than the temperature does.

Daylight runs from 8.8 hours in winter to 15.6 in summer, enough to notice on a sightseeing itinerary.

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

Minneapolis month by month