Clifton, AZ Climate: Temperature & Rain by Month
Temperature and precipitation from NOAA NCEI 1991–2020 normals →, plus PlainClimate's derived comfort score
30-year climate normals (1991-2020) from Clifton's primary NOAA station, CLIFTON.
The climate verdict for Clifton
Dryness leads the climate profile for Clifton, Arizona, with 17.0 inches of precipitation a year. NOAA records an annual average of 67°F. It scores 87/100 for climate comfort (excellent), putting it in the top third of station-mapped location scores and exceeding 87% of them.
- 67°F
- average temperature, NOAA 1991-2020 normal
- 87/100
- comfort score, above 87% of station-mapped location scores
- 17.0"
- annual precipitation
- 270 days
- growing season, frost-free days
Clifton: NOAA 1991-2020 normals describe a typical year, not a forecast. Method: /methodology.
Normals record plate
Sheet USC00021849 · Clifton, AZ 67°F mean · 17.0" precip
TEMP-MILD · RANK-WARM · PHOTO-FINISH · PRCP-DRY · SWING-MID · COMF-TOP · LOAD-MIX · STN-1 · BOOK-FULL
- TEMP-MILD 67°F
- RANK-WARM #6,312
- PHOTO-FINISH ≈ Bogalusa
- PRCP-DRY 17.0"
- SWING-MID 40°F
- COMF-TOP 87/100
- LOAD-MIX H/C balanced
- STN-1 USC00021849
- BOOK-FULL 6/6 fields
Nearest mean-temperature peer: Bogalusa, LA (+ 0 °F mean)
Instrument codes from this station's NOAA 1991–2020 normals, mean temperature, corpus warmth rank, photo-finish peer station, precipitation band, seasonal swing, comfort composite, degree-day load, and field book, not a livability rating.
Mean-temperature neighbourhood
Nationwide NOAA normal poles and nearest peers, not a reprint of every AZ station list.
- Clifton (this station) 67°F
- Hot Bunkie, LA 67°F
- Near Bogalusa, LA 67°F
- Near Bonifay Tri Cou…, FL 67°F
- Near Brusly, LA 67°F
Climate Living Index · Clifton
Clifton: 74/100 · grade B
Clifton publishes 5 of 6 Living Index dimensions (NOAA annual/seasonal normals · NOAA daily multivariate normals); 1 missing weight rescale to 100.
PlainClimate-derived for Clifton, not an official NOAA rating. Rankings still use Comfort Score 87/100 (separate formula). Breakpoints and limits.
| Dimension | Station value | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Annual temperature balance | 67.3°F · 0.2° from 67.5°F | 97/100 · A |
| Frost-free season | 270 days/year | 94/100 · A |
| Snowfall burden | 0.0 inches/year | 90/100 · A |
| Normal heat + freeze calendar | 131 calendar days | 58/100 · C |
| Precipitation balance | 17.0 in · 18.0 from 35 in | 36/100 · F |
Clifton · 2026-08-04 · NOAA NCEI Climate Normals · method · Comfort Score method.
Clifton's normals sit in a dry climate class: BSh
Precipitation is low relative to temperature but above true desert thresholds: hot semi-arid steppe (BSh). Class BSh is the Peel et al. (2007) label for this station's monthly mean temperature and precipitation normals: dry (arid or semi-arid), specifically hot semi-arid steppe.
- Köppen code
- BSh
- Group
- Dry (arid or semi-arid)
- Warmest month
- 87.4°F
- Coldest month
- 47.3°F
Source: official public datasets monthly normals (1991–2020) at the city’s primary station. This is a station classification, not a mapped regional consensus.
National standing · balanced station
Where Clifton sits across the climate record
Three NOAA fields for Clifton's primary station, temperature, precipitation, and seasonal swing, are ranked against every station-mapped normal that carries the same field.
- Annual temperature
- Top 8% warmest
- Among 6,861 stations, Clifton sits in the warmer third of annual means.
- Annual precipitation
- Drier than 78%
- Clifton's annual total ranks in the drier third of 6,352 measured normals.
- Seasonal temperature swing
- 36th percentile swing
- Typical seasonal amplitude versus 6,861 complete station-years.
How Clifton compares across U.S. station-mapped locations
Clifton's comfort score vs. all station-mapped locations
PlainClimate composite comfort index (1–100), NOAA 1991–2020 normals
87 Top 13% score exceeds 87% of 6,189 station-mapped location scores
- 0–10: 0 station-mapped locations (0%). Below this entry.
- 10–20: 0 station-mapped locations (0%). Below this entry.
- 20–30: 96 station-mapped locations (2%). Below this entry.
- 30–40: 280 station-mapped locations (5%). Below this entry.
- 40–50: 1,113 station-mapped locations (18%). Below this entry.
- 50–60: 1,329 station-mapped locations (21%). Below this entry.
- 60–70: 1,236 station-mapped locations (20%). Below this entry.
- 70–80: 650 station-mapped locations (11%). Below this entry.
- 80–90: 921 station-mapped locations (15%). This entry sits in this band.
- 90–100: 564 station-mapped locations (9%). Above this entry.
Source NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, PlainClimate comfort index · 1991–2020
Monthly Temperatures
Average daily high and low temperatures by month
| Month | Avg High | Avg Low | Mean | Precip | Snow | Freeze Days | 90°F+ Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 61°F (16°C) | 35°F (2°C) | 48°F (9°C) | 1.3" | 0.0" | 11.7 | 0.0 |
| February | 66°F (19°C) | 39°F (4°C) | 53°F (11°C) | 1.5" | 0.0" | 3.0 | 0.0 |
| March | 73°F (23°C) | 45°F (7°C) | 59°F (15°C) | 0.8" | 0.0" | 1.0 | 0.0 |
| April | 81°F (27°C) | 51°F (11°C) | 66°F (19°C) | 0.5" | 0.0" | 0.0 | 3.6 |
| May | 90°F (32°C) | 59°F (15°C) | 74°F (24°C) | 0.5" | 0.0" | 0.0 | 18.3 |
| June | 100°F (38°C) | 69°F (21°C) | 84°F (29°C) | 0.4" | 0.0" | 0.0 | 27.9 |
| July | 100°F (38°C) | 74°F (24°C) | 87°F (31°C) | 3.1" | 0.0" | 0.0 | 29.7 |
| August | 98°F (36°C) | 72°F (22°C) | 85°F (29°C) | 3.3" | 0.0" | 0.0 | 27.8 |
| September | 93°F (34°C) | 66°F (19°C) | 79°F (26°C) | 1.7" | 0.0" | 0.0 | 22.0 |
| October | 83°F (28°C) | 55°F (13°C) | 69°F (20°C) | 1.4" | 0.0" | 0.1 | 5.9 |
| November | 70°F (21°C) | 42°F (5°C) | 56°F (13°C) | 1.3" | 0.0" | 2.2 | 0.0 |
| December | 60°F (15°C) | 35°F (2°C) | 47°F (8°C) | 1.1" | 0.0" | 12.3 | 0.0 |
The year, day by day
The year in Clifton runs from a mild 35°F around December 15 to 102°F at the peak near June 26, and the normal low never reaches freezing on any date in the record.
When the heat sits
Normal highs reach 90°F from May 17 through September 24, covering 131 dates. The broader mild season, normal highs of 70°F or more, runs March 5 to November 15.
This counts calendar dates whose 1991–2020 normal high reaches 90°F. It is a smaller number than the 90°F+ day counts in the monthly table above, which measure how often the threshold was actually crossed in a typical year. A date can average 88°F and still exceed 90°F in half of all years.
No freezing date
Not one calendar date in the 1991–2020 record carries a normal low at or below 32°F. The coldest normal low of the year is 35°F around December 15.
Where the wet dates fall
The likeliest wet date is August 4, when 35% of years recorded at least a hundredth of an inch. The driest is April 25 at 5%. Summed across the calendar, that is about 56 wet dates a year.
The widest day
June 3 carries the biggest normal gap between afternoon and dawn, 33°F between the normal high and the normal low.
Look up any date
Any date's 1991–2020 normal for Clifton.
Where Clifton Stands Nationally
Summers here run among the most heat-heavy normals calendars in the country: on about 131 days a year the normal daily high itself reaches 90°F — a count fewer than one station in ten exceeds.
Daily temperature swings run wider than most of the country, peaking near 33°F between the normal high and low.
Clifton earns 2 nationally notable standings (outer quintiles) against 6,860 NOAA 1991–2020 normals stations; only those extremes render.
Monthly Precipitation
Average monthly rainfall and snowfall
4.1 days with precipitation
5.0 days with precipitation
3.6 days with precipitation
1.9 days with precipitation
2.3 days with precipitation
2.4 days with precipitation
8.5 days with precipitation
10.6 days with precipitation
5.9 days with precipitation
3.6 days with precipitation
3.4 days with precipitation
4.1 days with precipitation
Clifton runs a summer-peaked wet season
40% of Clifton's yearly precipitation falls in June, July and August alone, against the 25% an evenly spread year would give those three months. The wettest month is August at 3.3", on a 40.1°F seasonal spread. Warm-season convection and, across the Southwest, the North American monsoon produce this shape: rain arrives in short heavy bursts during the hottest part of the year rather than as long cool-season soaking.
- Wettest three months: August, July, September, taking 48% of the annual total between them.
- Driest month: June at 0.4".
- Winter share: 23% falls in December, January and February.
Shares are computed from this station's own 1991-2020 monthly precipitation normals. A summer-peaked label means the June-August share reaches 35%; it describes timing across an average year, not any single season, and says nothing about how heavy an individual storm can be.
How Clifton's precipitation splits across the calendar
About 55 days a year record measurable precipitation here, carrying 17.0" between them, or roughly 0.31 inches on a typical wet day. That sits in the middle band: neither the many-light-days pattern of the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes, nor the few-heavy-events pattern of the Gulf and the desert Southwest.
A wet day is one recording at least 0.01 inches. These are 1991-2020 normals: they describe an average year and say nothing about the heaviest single storm on record.
Clifton's record shows no measurable snowfall
This station measured snowfall across the 1991-2020 period and recorded none: the annual normal is 0.0 inches. That is a measured zero rather than missing data, which is a meaningful distinction here , most stations in the database simply do not report snow at all, and those pages say nothing about it.
A thirty-year normal of zero describes the typical year at this station. It is not a claim that snow has never fallen in the area.
Frost Dates & Growing Season
First Fall Freeze
November 23
50% probability date
Last Spring Freeze
February 26
50% probability date
Growing Season
270 days
Heating & Cooling Degree Days
Annual totals indicate energy demand for heating and cooling
Heating Degree Days
2,026
Higher = more heating needed
Cooling Degree Days
2,895
Higher = more cooling needed
Warmest Month
July
Coldest Month
December
Nationwide similar cities
Other rankable U.S. places outside AZ closest to Clifton on two NOAA annual-normal axes (mean temperature and annual precipitation). Chip rows use distinct link sets.
Closest by average temperature
Nearest out-of-state peers by annual mean temperature (67°F here).
- Bogalusa, LA 67°F · 0.0°F off
- Brusly, LA 67°F · 0.0°F off
- Bunkie, LA 67°F · 0.0°F off
- Valdosta, GA 67°F · 0.0°F off
Closest by annual precipitation
Nearest out-of-state peers by annual precipitation (17.0" here), excluding temperature-peer places.
- Villanueva, NM 17.0" · 0.0" off
- Syracuse, KS 17.0" · 0.0" off
- Springer, NM 17.1" · 0.0" off
- St John, WA 17.1" · 0.0" off
Data-derived climate profile
How Clifton's climate pattern fits together
mixed demand · dry · mid swing
Local precipitation is sparse in this otherwise mixed profile. The station reports 17.0 inches annually, within PlainClimate's dry band. Recorded annual snowfall is negligible. The monthly distribution matters because the total alone does not reveal the timing.
July and December mark the typical warm and cold ends of the calendar in Clifton's middle-range seasonal profile. The measured spread is 40.1°F. The annual average is 67°F. Neither the annual mean nor one extreme month represents the full calendar on its own.
Heating and cooling both register in Clifton's normal, at 2,026 and 2,895 degree days respectively. Neither total exceeds the other by more than two to one, so the record is better read as a mixed-demand calendar than as heating-led or cooling-led.
Clifton has a long frost-free window of roughly 270 days, but the dry annual profile is a separate constraint. Growing-season length says when freezes are unlikely, not whether rainfall is sufficient.
These labels group NOAA 1991-2020 normals from Clifton's primary station, where heating and cooling demand are close enough that neither season sets the character on its own. On a balanced station like Clifton, the bands are descriptive ranges rather than an official NOAA classification or a forecast.
Questions about Clifton's climate
How much rain does Clifton get? ▼
How many days above 90°F does Clifton get? ▼
How much energy does heating and cooling require in Clifton? ▼
Data Sources
Data source: NOAA U.S. Climate Normals v1.0.1 (1991-2020). All figures on this page are from Clifton's primary station: CLIFTON (USC00021849). For informational purposes only.
Place identity: U.S. Census Bureau 2024 Gazetteer places. The 2024 Census Gazetteer identifies the exact name-and-state match as an incorporated place (GEOID 0414380). Match rule for Clifton: exact normalized name + state only, no fuzzy expansion, so nearby differently spelled facilities stay unmatched.
On this page every temperature, precipitation, and derived score for Clifton comes from its primary NOAA station record. No figure on this page is typed in by an editor - each value is rendered from NOAA 1991-2020 U.S. Climate Normals. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 1991–2020 normals.