Weather in Virginia Beach in December

Shoulder season. December sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. Highs sit at 10.6 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 10 of 12 — near the bottom of Virginia Beach's year. October is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 41 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain on 9 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 10.6 °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: 5 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 22.4 °C and the coldest night fell to -7.2 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 48 mm — roughly 53% of the month's rain in one day.

December is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest December on record still delivered 186 mm against 36 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 91 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 13.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 82%, which at 10.6 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How December sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 4.6 °C cooler than November, with January dropping another 3 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Virginia Beach's year — 9.7 hours of daylight against 14.7 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 12.9 °C in December — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 25.8 °C in August and bottoms out at 8.7 °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

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.

December in Virginia Beach versus nearby

If Virginia Beach is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Richmond is the weaker option in December — 4.8 °C cooler, 11 days more rain. Washington is the weaker option in December — 3.1 °C cooler, the same number of rain days.

So: December is a compromise. October is 32 points better and is what Virginia Beach 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 Virginia Beach

See all twelve months in Virginia Beach, or where else to go in December.