Weather in Vienna in May

A good month. May is a solid month to be in Vienna. You should expect rain on 16 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

May ranks 5 of 12 in Vienna: past the worst of the year but short of September, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 16 wet days but only 2 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. 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 32.7 °C and the coldest night fell to 0.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 38 mm — roughly 45% of the month's rain in one day.

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 150 mm against 33 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 85 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 8.3 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 71%.

How May sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 4.3 °C warmer than April, and June adds another 4.2 °C. Late in the month feels noticeably different from the start of it, which is worth knowing if the trip is short. Rain has already shifted: 7 days more than April had.

Daylight in May

15.2 hours of daylight, gaining 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Vienna's extremes of 16 and 8.4 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 30.8 °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 Vienna versus nearby

If Vienna is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Graz is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain. Budapest is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 3 days less rain.

So: May is effectively as good as it gets here — 6 points behind September, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Vienna

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