Weather in Sharm el-Sheikh in January

Prime time. January is about as good as Sharm el-Sheikh gets. Highs average 23 °C, lows 15.7 °C, and rain falls on 0 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

January is the highest-scoring month of the twelve. The nearest rival is February, and the month at the other end of the year is September.

Rain is not a factor worth planning around this month. 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 January reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest January day reached 29.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 9.7 °C.

January is dependably dry, and that reliability is the point: across the twenty years measured, the wettest January on record still only managed 15 mm, and the driest managed 0 mm. There is no meaningful variability to plan around, which makes this one of the few months anywhere that you can build a fixed outdoor itinerary against without a fallback. The wettest single day in twenty years of Januarys brought 14 mm. Rain simply is not the variable that decides this trip — heat, crowds and cost are.

Wind is light at 12.8 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 49%.

How January sits in the year

This is a turning point in the year — December and February sit on opposite sides of it, so the month contains the change rather than following it.

Daylight in January

January sits at the dark end of Sharm el-Sheikh's year — 10.6 hours of daylight against 13.9 at midsummer, gaining 0.4 hours across the month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 23.2 °C in January — comfortable for a proper swim. The sea peaks at 29.1 °C in August and bottoms out at 22.6 °C — water lags the air by a month or two, which is why the best swimming often comes after the best weather.

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.

January in Sharm el-Sheikh versus nearby

If Sharm el-Sheikh is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Hurghada is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Cairo is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.2 °C cooler, 2 days more rain.

So: January is the answer for Sharm el-Sheikh. If it is booked out or priced out, February is the next best thing at 0 points behind, and September is the month to keep off the shortlist.

Every month in Sharm el-Sheikh

See all twelve months in Sharm el-Sheikh, or where else to go in January.