Escondido, California climate: Normal weather by month, frost dates and records
Escondido's normal year runs from 44°F December nights to 89°F August afternoons, with 14.5 inches of precipitation a year. (NOAA 1991-2020 normals)
In metric: a yearly mean of 18.8°C, December lows of 7°C, August highs of 32°C, 369 mm of precipitation a year.
- NOAA stationEscondido #2
- Station IDUSC00042863
- Location33.12°N 117.09°W
- Elevation600 ft (183 m)
- Population148,847
On October 23, the normal high in Escondido is 80°F and the normal low 56°F, and the chance of measurable rain or snow is 8%.
Normals describe a typical year at the station, not a forecast. The National Weather Service forecast for Escondido.
- Jan 69° 45°
- Feb 69° 46°
- Mar 71° 49°
- Apr 74° 52°
- May 77° 56°
- Jun 82° 60°
- Jul 87° 64°
- Aug 89° 65°
- Sep 87° 63°
- Oct 81° 57°
- Nov 75° 49°
- Dec 68° 44°
Each month: normal high (large) and low, °F. Fill: the month's normal mean, colder blue to hotter red.
What is the weather like in Escondido each month?
August is the warmest month, with normal highs of 89°F; December the coldest, with normal lows of 44°F. The most precipitation falls in February (3.57 in), the least in August (0.06 in).
Each month has its own page with the day-by-day normals, the month's records and its recent years:
| Month | High | Low | Mean | Precip. | Wet days | 90°F days | Freezing nights | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 69°F | 45°F | 56.8°F | 3.19 | 6 | <1 | 1 | 10 h 10 min |
| February | 69°F | 46°F | 57.3°F | 3.57 | 7 | <1 | <1 | 11 h |
| March | 71°F | 49°F | 59.9°F | 2.20 | 6 | 1 | <1 | 12 h |
| April | 74°F | 52°F | 63.0°F | 0.99 | 4 | 2 | <1 | 13 h |
| May | 77°F | 56°F | 66.6°F | 0.35 | 3 | 3 | <1 | 13 h 50 min |
| June | 82°F | 60°F | 71.1°F | 0.09 | 1 | 4 | <1 | 14 h 20 min |
| July | 87°F | 64°F | 75.8°F | 0.12 | 1 | 11 | <1 | 14 h 10 min |
| August | 89°F | 65°F | 77.2°F | 0.06 | <1 | 15 | <1 | 13 h 20 min |
| September | 87°F | 63°F | 75.0°F | 0.16 | 1 | 12 | <1 | 12 h 30 min |
| October | 81°F | 57°F | 69.1°F | 0.57 | 2 | 5 | <1 | 11 h 20 min |
| November | 75°F | 49°F | 61.9°F | 1.08 | 4 | 2 | <1 | 10 h 30 min |
| December | 68°F | 44°F | 55.9°F | 2.14 | 6 | <1 | 1 | 10 h |
| Year (annual) | 77°F | 54°F | 65.8°F | 14.52 | 41 | 54 | 2 |
The same normals in °C and millimetres
| Month | High | Low | Mean | Precip. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 20°C | 7°C | 13.8°C | 81 mm |
| February | 20°C | 8°C | 14.1°C | 91 mm |
| March | 22°C | 9°C | 15.5°C | 56 mm |
| April | 23°C | 11°C | 17.2°C | 25 mm |
| May | 25°C | 14°C | 19.2°C | 9 mm |
| June | 28°C | 16°C | 21.7°C | 2 mm |
| July | 31°C | 18°C | 24.3°C | 3 mm |
| August | 32°C | 19°C | 25.1°C | 2 mm |
| September | 31°C | 17°C | 23.9°C | 4 mm |
| October | 27°C | 14°C | 20.6°C | 14 mm |
| November | 24°C | 10°C | 16.6°C | 27 mm |
| December | 20°C | 7°C | 13.3°C | 54 mm |
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USC00042863; annual normals. Wet days: 0.01 inch or more; 90°F days and freezing nights: NOAA's day counts. Daylight: sunrise to sunset on the 15th, computed from the latitude.
When is the best weather to visit Escondido?
Normal highs sit between 65°F and 85°F in January, February, March, April, May, June, October, November and December. Of those, June has the fewest days with rain (1).
That is a measurement, not a recommendation: it counts the months whose normal afternoon high sits between 65°F and 85°F, where a light layer is enough by day.
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USC00042863.
When is the last frost in Escondido?
A night at 32°F or colder comes in only 39% of years in Escondido (NOAA). NOAA's median date of the last spring frost is January 2 and of the first autumn frost December 30.
NOAA puts the median frost-free season at 365 days, and the season without a hard freeze (28°F) at 365 days.
The USDA's 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Escondido in zones 9b to 10a across its 4 ZIP code areas (9b in 92027, the largest).
Frost dates for every NOAA station in California · Frost dates by ZIP code
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual normals (frost probabilities), station USC00042863; USDA 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map, ZIP listings: PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu, accessed October 8, 2026. A 10% date means one year in ten has a frost after it in spring or before it in autumn.
What hardiness zone is each Escondido ZIP code in?
The USDA's 2023 map gives each ZIP code area one zone. Escondido's 4 ZIP code areas run from zone 9b to 10a: 3 in 10a and 1 in 9b. Each ZIP's frost dates are in the frost tool.
Source: USDA 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map, ZIP listings: PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu, accessed October 8, 2026; ZIP areas in the place: Census Bureau 2020 ZCTA-to-place relationship file. A ZIP area counts when at least a tenth of its land (and 0.5 km²) lies in the place.
How hot and how cold does it get in Escondido?
In a normal year in Escondido, 54 days a year reach 90°F (6 of them 100°F or more), 2 nights fall to 32°F or colder and 41 days bring measurable precipitation.
- Days at 90°F or more
- 54a normal year
- Days at 100°F or more
- 6a normal year
- Nights at 32°F or colder
- 2a normal year
- Days that stay below freezing
- fewer than 1high of 32°F or less
- Days with 0.01 inch of precipitation
- 41a normal year
The highest temperature in Escondido's official record (kept by the National Weather Service since 1893) is 115°F, on September 6, 2020; the lowest is 13°F, on January 2, 1901.
The wettest calendar year on that record is 1978, with 33.83 in; the snowiest season is 1948–49, with 1.0 inches.
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual normals, station USC00042863; records: ACIS (NOAA Regional Climate Centers), NWS threaded record ESCC1thr. Records use complete months only; a month missing more than three days is left out.
How sunny is Escondido?
Over a year 87% of the sunlight that would reach the ground under clear skies gets through the clouds in the area around Escondido, 5.4 kWh per square metre a day. August is the sunniest month (92%) and February the cloudiest (83%). Among the 459 U.S. places of 50,000 or more, that ranks tied 58th (with 22 others) in sunshine.
| Month | Share of clear-sky sunshine | Sunshine, kWh/m² a day |
|---|---|---|
| January | 85% | 3.3 |
| February | 83% | 4.1 |
| March | 85% | 5.4 |
| April | 86% | 6.5 |
| May | 83% | 6.9 |
| June | 85% | 7.3 |
| July | 89% | 7.4 |
| August | 92% | 7.0 |
| September | 91% | 6.0 |
| October | 88% | 4.6 |
| November | 87% | 3.6 |
| December | 83% | 2.9 |
Source: NASA POWER solar climatology, 2001-2020 (CERES SYN1deg). Satellite-based, for the 1-degree cell (about 100 km across) around the station, so it describes the area rather than the airport.
How much heating and cooling does Escondido need?
A normal year in Escondido brings 1,214 heating degree days, 77% fewer than the median U.S. place (5,373), and 1,517 cooling degree days, 67% more than the median (908). No month reaches 300 heating degree days. For gardens and crops, NOAA counts 5,796 growing degree days a year above 50°F.
| Month | Heating | Cooling |
|---|---|---|
| January | 256 | 2 |
| February | 221 | 5 |
| March | 169 | 12 |
| April | 94 | 34 |
| May | 40 | 88 |
| June | 5 | 186 |
| July | 0 | 335 |
| August | 0 | 377 |
| September | 1 | 301 |
| October | 19 | 144 |
| November | 125 | 31 |
| December | 284 | 2 |
| Year (annual) | 1,214 | 1,517 |
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USC00042863. A degree day is one degree of a day's mean temperature below 65°F (heating) or above it (cooling); utilities use them to estimate energy use.
Has Escondido been warmer than normal lately?
2025 averaged 67.2°F, 1.4°F above the 1991-2020 normal of 65.8°F. 4 of the 5 complete years since 2021 ran warmer than the normal.
| Year | Mean | Against normal | Precip. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 66.3°F | +0.5°F | 11.78 |
| 2022 | 67.6°F | +1.8°F | 7.80 |
| 2023 | 65.5°F | −0.3°F | 27.36 |
| 2024 | 66.6°F | +0.8°F | 13.32 |
| 2025 | 67.2°F | +1.4°F | 11.52 |
Source: observed years: ACIS, station USC00042863. A year counts only with all twelve months complete.
How does Escondido's climate compare?
Escondido is warmer than 192 of the other 218 places with their own NOAA record in California, and wetter than 100. Across the 7,247 U.S. stations with normals, its annual mean of 65.8°F is warmer than 90%.
In the Köppen classification computed from these normals, Escondido is BSh: hot semi-arid steppe. What the classes mean.
Places with the most similar year elsewhere
Measured month by month on the normal high, low and precipitation, among places of 20,000 or more people in other states:
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for every station PlainClimate covers. Similarity: the root-mean-square difference of the 36 monthly figures, precipitation weighted so an inch counts like 6°F.
Which places near Escondido share this climate record?
4 places have no NOAA station with 1991-2020 normals of their own, and this station is the nearest full record. A place's own climate can differ from these figures, by several degrees where it sits much higher or lower than the station, nearer the coast, or inside a large city's heat; for the larger places the next nearest records are named with their yearly mean, so the spread around them is visible, and places of 50,000 or more have their own page with NOAA's gridded normals.
- San Marcos, CAalso near: Carlsbad (6 mi, 62.5°F a year); Vista (8 mi, 62.7°F a year)96,620 people · 5 mi W
- Harmony Grove, CA2,044 people · 3 mi SW
- Elfin Forest, CA566 people · 6 mi SW
- Del Dios, CA357 people · 4 mi SW
Source: Census Bureau 2024 Gazetteer (place centers) and Vintage 2024 population estimates. Distance and direction from the station to each place's center.
Questions about Escondido's climate
What is the coldest month in Escondido?
December, with a normal high of 68°F and a normal low of 44°F. The warmest is August (89°F by day, 65°F at night).
Does it snow in Escondido?
Rarely: NOAA's normal is no measurable snow a year.
What is the rainiest month in Escondido?
February, with 3.57 in of precipitation in a normal year; the driest is August with 0.06 in.
What plant hardiness zone is Escondido in?
The USDA's 2023 map puts Escondido in zones 9b to 10a across its 4 ZIP code areas (9b in 92027, the largest).
Nearby and next
- Escondido in OctoberThis month day by day, its records and recent years
- California climateThe statewide normals and every place in the state
- San Pasqual Animal Park, CA6 miles from this station, 65.0°F a year
- Rancho Bernardo, CA7 miles from this station, 63.5°F a year
- Valley Center, CA7 miles from this station, 62.7°F a year
- Carlsbad, CA11 miles from this station, 62.5°F a year
- Compare two placesMonth by month, side by side
Download these normals (CSV) · JSON · How these figures are made