Weather in Zermatt in August

A good month. August works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. You should expect rain on 15 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

August is the highest-scoring month of the twelve. The nearest rival is July, and the month at the other end of the year is December.

Rain on 15 days, 3 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

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average August reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest August day reached 25.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 0.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 43 mm — roughly 43% of the month's rain in one day.

August is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest August on record still delivered 160 mm against 50 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 99 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 75%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How August sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 18.7 °C in July, 18.5 here, 15.1 in September. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in August

14.2 hours of daylight, losing 1.4 hours across the month. That is between Zermatt's extremes of 15.7 and 8.7 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 28.7 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. At 1608 m, altitude is doing as much work here as latitude: thinner air means fierce sun by day and heat that leaves the moment it sets.

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.

August in Zermatt versus nearby

If Zermatt is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.6 °C warmer, the same number of rain days. Luzern is close enough to be a coin toss — 5.5 °C warmer, 2 days more rain.

So: August is the answer for Zermatt. If it is booked out or priced out, July is the next best thing at 1 points behind, and December is the month to keep off the shortlist.

Every month in Zermatt

See all twelve months in Zermatt, or where else to go in August.