Weather in Sa Pa in December

A good month. December works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. Highs sit at 15 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 4 of 12 in Sa Pa: past the worst of the year but short of February, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain falls on only 5 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 15 °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: 3 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 22.4 °C and the coldest night fell to -4.9 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 90 mm — roughly 273% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. December rainfall has ranged from 1 mm to 150 mm across the twenty years measured — a 149 mm spread around an average of 33 mm. The average is real but almost no individual December looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 2.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 82%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 18.8 °C in November, 15 here, 14.9 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Sa Pa's year — 10.8 hours of daylight against 13.5 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 22 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights. At 1500 m, altitude is doing as much work here as latitude: thinner air means fierce sun by day and heat that leaves the moment it sets.

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.

December in Sa Pa versus nearby

If Sa Pa is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Hanoi is a better bet in December — 6.6 °C warmer, 1 day less rain. Luang Prabang is a better bet in December — 13.5 °C warmer, 3 days less rain.

So: December works, with February the better month by 11 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Sa Pa

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