Weather in Reno in February

A hard month. February asks something of you. Go in knowing what. Highs sit at 8.1 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

February ranks 10 of 12 — near the bottom of Reno's year. June is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 66 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

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 8.1 °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 February day reached 20.5 °C and the coldest night fell to -15.1 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 51 mm — roughly 62% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. February rainfall has ranged from 3 mm to 260 mm across the twenty years measured — a 257 mm spread around an average of 82 mm. The average is real but almost no individual February looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 5.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 73%.

How February sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 6.8 °C in January, 8.1 here, 11.5 in March. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in February

10.7 hours of daylight, gaining 1.2 hours across the month. That is between Reno's extremes of 14.9 and 9.4 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 35.8 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. At 1373 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

Off season. The genuine off season: cheapest by a distance, with the caveat that some tours and restaurants close entirely.

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

February in Reno versus nearby

If Reno is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Sacramento is a better bet in February — 8.2 °C warmer, the same number of rain days. Napa is a better bet in February — 7.7 °C warmer, the same number of rain days.

So: February is a compromise. June is 54 points better and is what Reno 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 Reno

See all twelve months in Reno, or where else to go in February.