Weather in Raleigh in December

Shoulder season. December sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. Highs sit at 11.6 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 8 of 12 in Raleigh: past the worst of the year but short of October, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 9 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 11.6 °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: 16 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 24.8 °C and the coldest night fell to -12 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 50 mm — roughly 53% of the month's rain in one day.

December is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest December on record still delivered 162 mm against 43 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 94 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 1.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 81%, which at 11.6 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How December sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 4.9 °C cooler than November, with January dropping another 2.3 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Raleigh's year — 9.8 hours of daylight against 14.6 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 — 34.6 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself.

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

December in Raleigh versus nearby

If Raleigh is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Charlotte is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain. Richmond is the weaker option in December — 5.8 °C cooler, 11 days more rain.

So: December is a compromise. October is 28 points better and is what Raleigh 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 Raleigh

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