Weather in Thessaloníki in May

Greece · 20-year averages, May

Prime time. If you get to pick your dates, May is the one. Highs average 24.2 °C, lows 13.4 °C, and rain falls on 9 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

May ranks 3 of 12 in Thessaloníki. Only September scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 9 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

The averages here are honest — no hidden extremes worth planning around. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 34.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 6 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 33 mm — roughly 72% of the month's rain in one day.

May is moderately variable: 9 mm in the driest year against 85 mm in the wettest, around an average of 46 mm. Roughly two Mays in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 6.8 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 65%.

How May sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 5.9 °C warmer than April, and June adds another 5.4 °C. Late in the month feels noticeably different from the start of it, which is worth knowing if the trip is short.

Daylight in May

14.4 hours of daylight, gaining 1 hours across the month. That is between Thessaloníki's extremes of 15.1 and 9.3 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 31.7 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

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.

May in Thessaloníki versus nearby

If Thessaloníki is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Lárisa is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.1 °C warmer, 2 days less rain. Volos is close enough to be a coin toss — 2.4 °C cooler, 3 days less rain.

So: May is effectively as good as it gets here — 2 points behind September, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Thessaloníki

MonthHigh °CLow °CRain daysRain mmHumidity %Daylight hScore
January8.61.3 947829.648
February10.52.4 8388010.655
March14.24.9 9487611.966
April18.38.3 7407113.282
May24.213.4 9466514.484
June29.618.3 8375715.174
July3321.2 5295014.864
August32.921.3 4245013.867
September27.417.1 7476012.586
October21.211.8 7517211.286
November15.47.3 844791071
December9.92.8 964839.348

See all twelve months in Thessaloníki, or where else to go in May.

Planning the rest of the trip

Built and maintained by Amit Sharma, Auckland, New Zealand. I build these sites so the answer is free and the data is public.

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