Sarasota, Florida climate: Normal weather by month, frost dates and records
Sarasota's normal year runs from 52°F January nights to 92°F August afternoons, with 49.0 inches of precipitation a year. (NOAA 1991-2020 normals)
In metric: a yearly mean of 23.4°C, January lows of 11°C, August highs of 33°C, 1,246 mm of precipitation a year.
- NOAA stationSarasota Bradenton Airport
- Station IDUSW00012871
- Location27.40°N 82.56°W
- Elevation28 ft (9 m)
- From the center4 miles
- Population57,764
On October 14, the normal high in Sarasota is 87°F and the normal low 69°F, and the chance of measurable rain or snow is 25%.
Normals describe a typical year at the station, not a forecast. The National Weather Service forecast for Sarasota.
- Jan 73° 52°
- Feb 75° 55°
- Mar 78° 58°
- Apr 83° 63°
- May 88° 68°
- Jun 90° 74°
- Jul 91° 75°
- Aug 92° 75°
- Sep 90° 74°
- Oct 86° 68°
- Nov 80° 60°
- Dec 75° 55°
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 Sarasota each month?
August is the warmest month, with normal highs of 92°F; January the coldest, with normal lows of 52°F. The most precipitation falls in August (9.11 in), the least in November (1.81 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 | 73°F | 52°F | 62.4°F | 2.79 | 9 | <1 | 1 | 10 h 40 min |
| February | 75°F | 55°F | 64.8°F | 1.92 | 7 | <1 | <1 | 11 h 10 min |
| March | 78°F | 58°F | 68.1°F | 2.85 | 6 | <1 | <1 | 12 h |
| April | 83°F | 63°F | 72.6°F | 2.46 | 5 | 1 | <1 | 12 h 50 min |
| May | 88°F | 68°F | 77.8°F | 2.58 | 6 | 7 | <1 | 13 h 30 min |
| June | 90°F | 74°F | 81.8°F | 7.05 | 13 | 14 | <1 | 13 h 50 min |
| July | 91°F | 75°F | 83.1°F | 7.39 | 16 | 20 | <1 | 13 h 40 min |
| August | 92°F | 75°F | 83.4°F | 9.11 | 18 | 22 | <1 | 13 h 10 min |
| September | 90°F | 74°F | 82.2°F | 6.00 | 14 | 16 | <1 | 12 h 20 min |
| October | 86°F | 68°F | 77.3°F | 2.76 | 7 | 5 | <1 | 11 h 30 min |
| November | 80°F | 60°F | 70.1°F | 1.81 | 6 | <1 | <1 | 10 h 50 min |
| December | 75°F | 55°F | 65.2°F | 2.33 | 8 | <1 | <1 | 10 h 30 min |
| Year (annual) | 83°F | 65°F | 74.1°F | 49.05 | 113 | 85 | 1 |
The same normals in °C and millimetres
| Month | High | Low | Mean | Precip. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 23°C | 11°C | 16.9°C | 71 mm |
| February | 24°C | 13°C | 18.2°C | 49 mm |
| March | 26°C | 15°C | 20.1°C | 72 mm |
| April | 28°C | 17°C | 22.6°C | 62 mm |
| May | 31°C | 20°C | 25.4°C | 66 mm |
| June | 32°C | 23°C | 27.7°C | 179 mm |
| July | 33°C | 24°C | 28.4°C | 188 mm |
| August | 33°C | 24°C | 28.6°C | 231 mm |
| September | 32°C | 23°C | 27.9°C | 152 mm |
| October | 30°C | 20°C | 25.2°C | 70 mm |
| November | 27°C | 16°C | 21.2°C | 46 mm |
| December | 24°C | 13°C | 18.4°C | 59 mm |
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012871; 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 Sarasota?
Normal highs sit between 65°F and 85°F in January, February, March, April, November and December. Of those, April 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 USW00012871.
When is the last frost in Sarasota?
A night at 32°F or colder comes in only 31% of years in Sarasota (NOAA). NOAA's median date of the last spring frost is January 15 and of the first autumn frost January 10.
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 Sarasota in zone 10a across its 5 ZIP code areas (10a in 34237, the largest). By the map's own method, the average of each year's coldest night over 1991-2020, Sarasota's NOAA station is in zone 10a: the coldest night of a typical year reaches 33°F (21 complete years).
Frost dates for every NOAA station in Florida · Frost dates by ZIP code
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual normals (frost probabilities), station USW00012871; 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 Sarasota ZIP code in?
The USDA's 2023 map gives each ZIP code area one zone. Sarasota's 5 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 Sarasota?
In a normal year in Sarasota, 85 days a year reach 90°F, 1 night falls to 32°F or colder and 113 days bring measurable precipitation.
- Days at 90°F or more
- 85a normal year
- Days at 100°F or more
- fewer than 1a normal year
- Nights at 32°F or colder
- 1a normal year
- Days that stay below freezing
- fewer than 1high of 32°F or less
- Days with 0.01 inch of precipitation
- 113a normal year
The highest temperature in this station's record (since 1999) is 101°F, on August 13, 2007; the lowest is 27°F, on December 28, 2010.
The wettest calendar year on that record is 2024, with 78.07 in.
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual normals, station USW00012871; records: ACIS (NOAA Regional Climate Centers), station USW00012871. Records use complete months only; a month missing more than three days is left out.
How sunny is Sarasota?
Over a year 83% of the sunlight that would reach the ground under clear skies gets through the clouds in the area around Sarasota, 5.1 kWh per square metre a day. May is the sunniest month (88%) and July the cloudiest (79%). Among the 459 U.S. places of 50,000 or more, that ranks tied 93rd (with 5 others) in sunshine.
| Month | Share of clear-sky sunshine | Sunshine, kWh/m² a day |
|---|---|---|
| January | 81% | 3.6 |
| February | 81% | 4.3 |
| March | 85% | 5.5 |
| April | 87% | 6.4 |
| May | 88% | 6.8 |
| June | 81% | 6.2 |
| July | 79% | 5.9 |
| August | 80% | 5.6 |
| September | 81% | 5.2 |
| October | 86% | 4.7 |
| November | 84% | 3.9 |
| December | 81% | 3.3 |
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 Sarasota need?
A normal year in Sarasota brings 394 heating degree days, 93% fewer than the median U.S. place (5,373), and 3,721 cooling degree days, 4.1 times the median (908). No month reaches 300 heating degree days. For gardens and crops, NOAA counts 8,815 growing degree days a year above 50°F.
| Month | Heating | Cooling |
|---|---|---|
| January | 142 | 61 |
| February | 82 | 75 |
| March | 40 | 138 |
| April | 6 | 234 |
| May | 0 | 399 |
| June | 0 | 504 |
| July | 0 | 563 |
| August | 0 | 570 |
| September | 0 | 514 |
| October | 3 | 384 |
| November | 27 | 178 |
| December | 96 | 102 |
| Year (annual) | 394 | 3,721 |
Source: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012871. 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 Sarasota been warmer than normal lately?
2025 averaged 74.8°F, 0.7°F above the 1991-2020 normal of 74.1°F. 5 of the 5 complete years since 2021 ran warmer than the normal.
| Year | Mean | Against normal | Precip. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 74.8°F | +0.7°F | 46.71 |
| 2022 | 74.7°F | +0.6°F | 54.28 |
| 2023 | 76.1°F | +2.0°F | 27.13 |
| 2024 | 75.1°F | +1.0°F | 78.07 |
| 2025 | 74.8°F | +0.7°F | 45.94 |
Source: observed years: ACIS, station USW00012871. A year counts only with all twelve months complete.
How does Sarasota's climate compare?
Sarasota is warmer than 74 of the other 105 places with their own NOAA record in Florida, and wetter than 11. Across the 7,247 U.S. stations with normals, its annual mean of 74.1°F is warmer than 98%.
In the Köppen classification computed from these normals, Sarasota 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 Sarasota share this climate record?
24 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.
- South Bradenton, FL25,585 people · 4 mi N
- Bayshore Gardens, FL18,324 people · 2 mi NW
- Fruitville, FL15,828 people · 8 mi SE
- Sarasota Springs, FL12,669 people · 8 mi SE
- Bee Ridge, FL9,921 people · 10 mi SE
- Gulf Gate, FL8,317 people · 10 mi S
- Longboat Key, FL7,463 people · 5 mi W
- Southgate, FL6,054 people · 7 mi SE
- Siesta Key, FL5,690 people · 9 mi S
- The Meadows, FL5,463 people · 6 mi SE
- South Gate Ridge, FL5,456 people · 9 mi SE
- Cortez, FL5,323 people · 8 mi NW
- Ridge Wood Heights, FL5,085 people · 8 mi S
- South Sarasota, FL4,905 people · 8 mi S
- Whitfield, FL4,745 people · 1 mi NW
- West Bradenton, FL4,017 people · 8 mi NW
- Kensington Park, FL3,561 people · 5 mi SE
- Holmes Beach, FL3,049 people · 12 mi NW
- North Sarasota, FL3,041 people · 4 mi SE
- Desoto Lakes, FL2,193 people · 4 mi E
- Anna Maria, FL1,016 people · 14 mi NW
- Bradenton Beach, FL927 people · 9 mi NW
- Desoto Acres, FL770 people · 3 mi SE
- Pinecraft, FL465 people · 6 mi SE
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 Sarasota's climate
What is the coldest month in Sarasota?
January, with a normal high of 73°F and a normal low of 52°F. The warmest is August (92°F by day, 75°F at night).
What is the rainiest month in Sarasota?
August, with 9.11 in of precipitation in a normal year; the driest is November with 1.81 in.
What plant hardiness zone is Sarasota in?
The USDA's 2023 map puts Sarasota in zone 10a across its 5 ZIP code areas (10a in 34237, the largest). By the same method at Sarasota's NOAA station, the coldest night of a typical year reaches 33°F (21 years, 1991-2020): zone 10a.
Nearby and next
- Sarasota in OctoberThis month day by day, its records and recent years
- Florida climateThe statewide normals and every place in the state
- Bradenton, FL5 miles from this station, 74.1°F a year
- Myakka River State Park, FL19 miles from this station, 73.6°F a year
- Parrish, FL19 miles from this station, 72.8°F a year
- Venice, FL22 miles from this station, 73.7°F a year
- Compare two placesMonth by month, side by side
Download these normals (CSV) · JSON · How these figures are made