Weather in Swansea in October

Shoulder season. October is shoulder season in Swansea — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. You should expect rain on 18 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

October ranks 7 of 12 in Swansea: past the worst of the year but short of July, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 18 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 14.6 °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: the day barely swings — 4.1 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest October day reached 21.8 °C and the coldest night fell to 3.3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 53 mm — roughly 46% of the month's rain in one day.

October is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest October on record still delivered 193 mm against 53 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 115 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind sits around 17.3 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 87%, which at 14.6 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How October sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 3 °C cooler than September, with November dropping another 3.4 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip. Rain has already shifted: 5 days more than September had.

Daylight in October

10.8 hours of daylight, losing 1.9 hours across the month. That is between Swansea's extremes of 16.6 and 7.9 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 14.8 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

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.

October in Swansea versus nearby

If Swansea is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Birmingham is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 4 days less rain. Manchester is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days.

So: October is a compromise. July is 20 points better and is what Swansea 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 Swansea

See all twelve months in Swansea, or where else to go in October.