Weather in Nanaimo in September

Prime time. September is about as good as Nanaimo gets. Highs average 20.4 °C, lows 12.6 °C, and rain falls on 10 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

September ranks 4 of 12 in Nanaimo: past the worst of the year but short of July, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 10 days, 1 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 September reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest September day reached 30.6 °C and the coldest night fell to 6.8 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 25 mm — roughly 48% of the month's rain in one day.

September is moderately variable: 16 mm in the driest year against 104 mm in the wettest, around an average of 52 mm. Roughly two Septembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 4.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 76%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How September sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 3.9 °C cooler than August, with October dropping another 5.9 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip. Rain is the thing that moves: October brings 6 days more of it, so the earlier half of a flexible trip is the safer half.

Daylight in September

12.7 hours of daylight, losing 1.8 hours across the month. That is between Nanaimo's extremes of 16.2 and 8.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 21.4 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

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

September in Nanaimo versus nearby

If Nanaimo is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Vancouver is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 2 days more rain. Maple Ridge is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 2 days more rain.

So: September is effectively as good as it gets here — 6 points behind July, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Nanaimo

See all twelve months in Nanaimo, or where else to go in September.