Weather in Nanjing in May

Prime time. If you get to pick your dates, May is the one. Highs average 27.5 °C, lows 15.8 °C, and rain falls on 9 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

May ranks 3 of 12 in Nanjing. Only October scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 9 days, 3 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: 8 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 37.7 °C and the coldest night fell to 7.3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 47 mm — roughly 54% of the month's rain in one day.

May is moderately variable: 28 mm in the driest year against 163 mm in the wettest, around an average of 87 mm. Roughly two Mays in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 9.9 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 71%.

How May sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 5.4 °C warmer than April, and June adds another 3.3 °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 Nanjing's year: 13.8 hours of daylight, gaining 0.7 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 — 34.2 °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 Nanjing versus nearby

If Nanjing is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Hangzhou is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 4 days more rain. Shanghai is close enough to be a coin toss — 2.2 °C cooler, 2 days more rain.

So: May works, with October the better month by 7 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Nanjing

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