Galveston, Texas climate: Normal weather by month, frost dates and records
Galveston's normal year runs from 49°F January nights to 92°F August afternoons, with 47.2 inches of precipitation and less than an inch of snow (0.1 in) a year. (NOAA 1991-2020 normals)
In metric: a yearly mean of 22.4°C, January lows of 9°C, August highs of 33°C, 1,199 mm of precipitation a year.
- NOAA stationGalveston Scholes Field
- Station IDUSW00012923
- Location29.27°N 94.86°W
- Elevation5 ft (2 m)
- Population53,538
On October 23, the normal high in Galveston is 80°F and the normal low 66°F, and the chance of measurable rain or snow is 24%.
Normals describe a typical year at the station, not a forecast. The National Weather Service forecast for Galveston.
- Jan 63° 49°
- Feb 66° 52°
- Mar 72° 58°
- Apr 78° 65°
- May 84° 72°
- Jun 90° 78°
- Jul 91° 80°
- Aug 92° 80°
- Sep 89° 76°
- Oct 82° 69°
- Nov 72° 59°
- Dec 66° 52°
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 Galveston each month?
August is the warmest month, with normal highs of 92°F; January the coldest, with normal lows of 49°F. The most precipitation falls in September (6.65 in), the least in April (2.06 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 | 63°F | 49°F | 56.0°F | 4.30 | 9 | <1 | 1 | 10 h 30 min |
| February | 66°F | 52°F | 59.3°F | 2.14 | 8 | <1 | 1 | 11 h 10 min |
| March | 72°F | 58°F | 65.2°F | 3.02 | 7 | <1 | <1 | 12 h |
| April | 78°F | 65°F | 71.5°F | 2.06 | 6 | <1 | <1 | 12 h 50 min |
| May | 84°F | 72°F | 78.2°F | 3.04 | 5 | 1 | <1 | 13 h 40 min |
| June | 90°F | 78°F | 83.8°F | 4.23 | 9 | 9 | <1 | 14 h |
| July | 91°F | 80°F | 85.5°F | 3.41 | 9 | 20 | <1 | 13 h 50 min |
| August | 92°F | 80°F | 85.9°F | 4.71 | 8 | 24 | <1 | 13 h 10 min |
| September | 89°F | 76°F | 82.4°F | 6.65 | 10 | 11 | <1 | 12 h 20 min |
| October | 82°F | 69°F | 75.3°F | 5.15 | 7 | 1 | <1 | 11 h 30 min |
| November | 72°F | 59°F | 65.5°F | 4.28 | 8 | <1 | <1 | 10 h 40 min |
| December | 66°F | 52°F | 58.5°F | 4.23 | 10 | <1 | <1 | 10 h 20 min |
| Year (annual) | 79°F | 66°F | 72.3°F | 47.22 | 95 | 66 | 2 |
The same normals in °C and millimetres
| Month | High | Low | Mean | Precip. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 17°C | 9°C | 13.3°C | 109 mm |
| February | 19°C | 11°C | 15.2°C | 54 mm |
| March | 22°C | 15°C | 18.4°C | 77 mm |
| April | 26°C | 18°C | 21.9°C | 52 mm |
| May | 29°C | 22°C | 25.7°C | 77 mm |
| June | 32°C | 26°C | 28.8°C | 107 mm |
| July | 33°C | 27°C | 29.7°C | 87 mm |
| August | 33°C | 27°C | 29.9°C | 120 mm |
| September | 32°C | 24°C | 28.0°C | 169 mm |
| October | 28°C | 20°C | 24.1°C | 131 mm |
| November | 22°C | 15°C | 18.6°C | 109 mm |
| December | 19°C | 11°C | 14.7°C | 107 mm |
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012923; 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 Galveston?
Normal highs sit between 65°F and 85°F in February, March, April, May, October, November and December. Of those, May has the fewest days with rain (5).
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 USW00012923.
When is the last frost in Galveston?
A night at 32°F or colder comes in only 48% of years in Galveston (NOAA). NOAA's median date of the last spring frost is January 18 and of the first autumn frost January 7.
NOAA puts the median frost-free season at 365 days, and the season without a hard freeze (28°F) at 365 days.
A hard freeze (28°F) comes after January 9 in half of springs and before January 8 in half of autumns.
The USDA's 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Galveston in zone 10a across its 3 ZIP code areas (10a in 77554, the largest). By the map's own method, the average of each year's coldest night over 1991-2020, Galveston's NOAA station is in zone 10a: the coldest night of a typical year reaches 32°F (24 complete years).
Frost dates for every NOAA station in Texas · Frost dates by ZIP code
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual normals (frost probabilities), station USW00012923; USDA 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map, ZIP listings: PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu, accessed October 8, 2026; the station zone: ACIS daily lows, 1991-2020. 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 Galveston ZIP code in?
The USDA's 2023 map gives each ZIP code area one zone. Galveston's 3 ZIP code areas are all in zone 10a. 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 Galveston?
In a normal year in Galveston, 66 days a year reach 90°F, 2 nights fall to 32°F or colder and 95 days bring measurable precipitation.
- Days at 90°F or more
- 66a normal year
- Days at 100°F or more
- fewer than 1a 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
- 95a normal year
The highest temperature in Galveston's official record (kept by the National Weather Service since 1874) is 104°F, on September 5, 2000; the lowest is 8°F, on February 12, 1899.
The wettest calendar year on that record is 1900, with 78.39 in; the snowiest season is 1894–95, with 15.4 inches.
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual normals, station USW00012923; records: ACIS (NOAA Regional Climate Centers), NWS threaded record GLSthr. Records use complete months only; a month missing more than three days is left out.
How sunny is Galveston?
Over a year 79% of the sunlight that would reach the ground under clear skies gets through the clouds in the area around Galveston, 4.7 kWh per square metre a day. June is the sunniest month (84%) and February the cloudiest (67%). Among the 459 U.S. places of 50,000 or more, that ranks tied 176th (with 33 others) in sunshine.
| Month | Share of clear-sky sunshine | Sunshine, kWh/m² a day |
|---|---|---|
| January | 71% | 2.9 |
| February | 67% | 3.3 |
| March | 74% | 4.6 |
| April | 77% | 5.5 |
| May | 82% | 6.3 |
| June | 84% | 6.5 |
| July | 82% | 6.2 |
| August | 83% | 5.8 |
| September | 80% | 5.0 |
| October | 83% | 4.4 |
| November | 80% | 3.4 |
| December | 71% | 2.6 |
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 Galveston need?
A normal year in Galveston brings 889 heating degree days, 83% fewer than the median U.S. place (5,373), and 3,571 cooling degree days, 3.9 times the median (908). No month reaches 300 heating degree days. For gardens and crops, NOAA counts 8,235 growing degree days a year above 50°F.
| Month | Heating | Cooling |
|---|---|---|
| January | 290 | 13 |
| February | 182 | 24 |
| March | 78 | 84 |
| April | 12 | 207 |
| May | 0 | 409 |
| June | 0 | 564 |
| July | 0 | 636 |
| August | 0 | 648 |
| September | 0 | 522 |
| October | 8 | 328 |
| November | 89 | 105 |
| December | 230 | 31 |
| Year (annual) | 889 | 3,571 |
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012923. 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 Galveston been warmer than normal lately?
2024 averaged 73.9°F, 1.6°F above the 1991-2020 normal of 72.3°F. 4 of the 4 complete years since 2021 ran warmer than the normal.
| Year | Mean | Against normal | Precip. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 73.3°F | +1.0°F | 43.65 |
| 2022 | 73.4°F | +1.1°F | 38.32 |
| 2023 | 73.9°F | +1.6°F | 30.78 |
| 2024 | 73.9°F | +1.6°F | 62.76 |
Over 76 complete years from 1946 to 2025, the station's annual mean temperature rose at a fitted 4.0°F per century (+0.22°C per decade). A fitted rate summarizes the whole record; single years swing well above and below it.
Source: observed years: ACIS, station USW00012923; trend: NOAA GHCN-Monthly v4. A year counts only with all twelve months complete.
How does Galveston's climate compare?
Galveston is warmer than 294 of the other 320 places with their own NOAA record in Texas, and wetter than 265. Across the 7,247 U.S. stations with normals, its annual mean of 72.3°F is warmer than 97%.
In the Köppen classification computed from these normals, Galveston is Cfa: temperate, no dry season, hot summer. 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 Galveston share this climate record?
5 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.
- Texas City, TXalso near: League City (12 mi, 70.6°F a year); Alvin (21 mi, 69.3°F a year)57,875 people · 11 mi N
- Hitchcock, TX7,752 people · 9 mi W
- Bayou Vista, TX1,763 people · 6 mi NW
- Tiki Island, TX1,120 people · 4 mi NW
- Jamaica Beach, TX1,077 people · 9 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.
What do Galveston's other NOAA stations record?
One more NOAA station keeps 1991-2020 normals in or near Galveston. This page uses Galveston Scholes Field; the other differs by site and elevation:
| Station | From this station | Elevation | Year | Jan low | Jul high | Precip. | Snow | Last frost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galveston station USW00012944 | 4 mi NE | 7 ft | 71.4°F | 48°F | 90°F | – | – | January 25 |
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for each station. Last frost: the median last spring date of 32°F.
Questions about Galveston's climate
What is the coldest month in Galveston?
January, with a normal high of 63°F and a normal low of 49°F. The warmest is August (92°F by day, 80°F at night).
Does it snow in Galveston?
Rarely: NOAA's normal is 0.1 inch a year.
What is the rainiest month in Galveston?
September, with 6.65 in of precipitation in a normal year; the driest is April with 2.06 in.
What plant hardiness zone is Galveston in?
The USDA's 2023 map puts Galveston in zone 10a across its 3 ZIP code areas (10a in 77554, the largest). By the same method at Galveston's NOAA station, the coldest night of a typical year reaches 32°F (24 years, 1991-2020): zone 10a.
Nearby and next
- Galveston in OctoberThis month day by day, its records and recent years
- Texas climateThe statewide normals and every place in the state
- League City, TX19 miles from this station, 70.6°F a year
- Alvin, TX24 miles from this station, 69.3°F a year
- Houston Clover Field, TX29 miles from this station, 71.3°F a year
- Houston Hobby Airport, TX36 miles from this station, 71.1°F a year
- Compare two placesMonth by month, side by side
Download these normals (CSV) · JSON · How these figures are made