Weather in Moab in December

A hard month. December is a hard month in Moab, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 7.7 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 11 of 12 — near the bottom of Moab's year. April is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 50 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain falls on only 6 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 7.7 °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: 20 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 19 °C and the coldest night fell to -16 °C.

December is moderately variable: 7 mm in the driest year against 62 mm in the wettest, around an average of 27 mm. Roughly two Decembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 7 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 64%.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 14.5 °C in November, 7.7 here, 7.9 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Moab's year — 9.5 hours of daylight against 14.8 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 — 39.1 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. At 1227 m the air is thin enough to matter — sun that burns faster than the temperature suggests, and nights that cool off quickly.

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 Moab versus nearby

If Moab is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Aspen is the weaker option in December — 8.5 °C cooler, 5 days more rain. Park City is the weaker option in December — 8.4 °C cooler, 5 days more rain.

So: December is a compromise. April is 44 points better and is what Moab 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 Moab

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