Frost-Free Towns in Spain

How to choose where to spend the winter

If you're looking for a natural climate refuge to spend the winter in, with mild nights and fewer hours of heating, these are the steps:

1. Decide the outdoor temperature at which you'd want the heating on at night and choose it above, in the calculator. For example, 5 °C.
2. Look at the table. When you change the degrees it recalculates for every town — how many nights per winter the low reached that value or below at its reference station — and sorts them from fewest to most. Filter by province or population if you already have an area in mind.
3. Prefer high confidence. It means the station is close to the town and at a similar altitude. With the “indicative” label, conditions in the town can differ more from the figure.
4. Open the series for your shortlist. Click a town's name and check it winter by winter: few cold nights every year is more predictable than a good average propped up by one mild winter.
5. Use a reference you know. Look up a Spanish city you're familiar with — Madrid, for instance — at the same threshold: the difference is a first comparison of how many cold nights you'd avoid. Our comparison of Spain's mildest winters does it for eight cities.

What this doesn't measure: heating costs also depend on daytime temperatures and on the home itself — insulation, orientation, which floor it's on. If you're renting, ask how the home is heated: in a mild climate not every home has central heating. Cold nights at the station are a first filter to compare towns, not an estimate of your bill.

All towns

4,113 towns with more than 500 residents and an AEMET weather station within the distance and altitude limits. The nights column is the average number of nights per winter with a low of 0 °C or below at the reference station, over winters with complete data; the next column counts in how many of those winters there were none. Change the degrees here or in the calculator: the table recalculates and re-sorts at that threshold. Click a town to see its series.

Source: AEMET (temperatures) · IGN (CNIG), National Gazetteer of Municipalities and Population Entities (towns).

Towns with no frost in winter 2025/26, by province

Towns whose reference station recorded no night at 0 °C or below between 1 November and 31 March. Each province link opens the filtered table.

Limitations

• The station measures its own location, not the town centre. A town can have neighbourhoods that are colder or milder than its reference station, especially where there's a difference in altitude.
• No station nearby doesn't mean an unfavourable climate: it means there's no data. Towns without a station within the limits don't appear.
• Urban heat island: in larger towns, the centre is usually milder at night than a station on the outskirts or at an airport. This isn't corrected for.
• Humidity isn't used as a criterion, and neither is wind. Without that data we can't talk about how the cold feels, so the page sticks to minimum temperature.
• Series vary in length: each station counts winters with data on at least 90 % of days, and needs at least five.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a frost?

A night when the minimum temperature drops to 0.0 °C or below. We count it at each town's reference AEMET weather station, between 1 November and 31 March.

What does it mean when a town is listed as frost-free?

That its reference weather station recorded no frost that winter. Each winter is judged on its own: in winter 2025/26 that was the case for 845 towns, and the next winter is measured again.

Why is the figure for the station and not the town?

Because AEMET measures at specific points. Each town is matched to the most representative station within 35 km, and we show the distance and the altitude difference; with more than 100 m of difference, the temperature can shift by more than half a degree.

Can I count nights below a different temperature?

Yes. The selector accepts any whole degree from −4 to 20 °C, and each town's series shows how many nights per winter the low reached that value or below.

Does it take wind chill or “feels like” temperature into account?

No. We only use the minimum temperature recorded by the station. Humidity and wind change how cold feels, but without that data it can't be calculated rigorously.

In summer: the natural climate refuges where you still sleep cool in August are in the coolest towns to sleep in summer. How we measure: methodology (in Spanish).
Open data, for media and research: the full table, with nights per winter for every degree from −4 to 20 °C, can be downloaded in JSON format (licence CC BY 4.0, crediting AEMET and IGN).