Weather in Ushuaia in May

The month to avoid. May is the month most people should skip in Ushuaia. Highs sit at 5.4 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

May ranks 9 of 12 in Ushuaia: past the worst of the year but short of February, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 16 wet days but only 0 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 5.4 °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: 5 nights fall below freezing; the day barely swings — 3.6 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 13.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -4.8 °C.

May is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest May on record still delivered 76 mm against 24 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 53 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind sits around 16.4 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 92%, which at 5.4 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How May sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 2.5 °C cooler than April, with June dropping another 2.3 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in May

8.4 hours of daylight, losing 1.7 hours across the month. That is between Ushuaia's extremes of 17.3 and 7.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 13.2 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

How busy it gets

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

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

May in Ushuaia versus nearby

If Ushuaia is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Puerto Montt is a better bet in May — 7.6 °C warmer, 1 day more rain. Mar del Plata is a better bet in May — 9.9 °C warmer, 7 days less rain.

So: May works, with February the better month by 17 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Ushuaia

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