Weather in Wichita in December

A hard month. December is a hard month in Wichita, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 7.6 °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 Wichita's year. October is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 42 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain falls on only 4 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 7.6 °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: 24 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 21.4 °C and the coldest night fell to -17 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 56 mm — roughly 170% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. December rainfall has ranged from 1 mm to 96 mm across the twenty years measured — a 95 mm spread around an average of 33 mm. The average is real but almost no individual December looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 11.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 73%.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 14.5 °C in November, 7.6 here, 6.5 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Wichita's year — 9.6 hours of daylight against 14.8 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 38.7 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

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 Wichita versus nearby

If Wichita is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Tulsa is close enough to be a coin toss — 2.2 °C warmer, 2 days more rain. Oklahoma City is a better bet in December — 2.5 °C warmer, 1 day more rain.

So: December is a compromise. October is 38 points better and is what Wichita 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 Wichita

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