If you are coming to Spain for a fortnight, the averages will do. If you are coming for the winter — one, two, three months — there is a different number that decides how it goes, and almost nobody publishes it: the longest run of days without a single one warm enough to sit outside.
A bad week is a bad week. A bad run is your whole stay.
A terrace day here is a day whose maximum reached 18 °C — warm enough to eat outside with a jumper on. The figure above is not an average of bad days: it is the longest unbroken run AEMET recorded at each station across nine winters, and then the median of those runs.
Read it again, because it is the whole point: in half of mainland Spain you could spend 90 consecutive days — most of a three-month stay — without one afternoon warm enough to sit outside. That is not the Spain in the brochure, and it is why «go south» is not a precise enough answer.
These are the mainland and Balearic stations that clear three bars at once: the run stays under a month, at least 80 terrace days a winter, and no more than 45 nights below 10 °C — because a short run is no use if you are paying to heat the place anyway. Sorted by the run, shortest first.
| Where | Worst run without a terrace day |
Terrace days a winter | Heating nights (below 10 °C) |
Rain days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rincón de la Victoria | 13 days | 128 | 26 | 20 |
| El Ejido | 14 days | 122 | 44 | 13 |
| Torremolinos | 20 days | 90 | 29 | 25 |
| Marbella | 24 days | 90 | 11 | 20 |
| Melilla | 24 days | 87 | 29 | 23 |
| Málaga | 24 days | 85 | 24 | 20 |
| Nerja | 28 days | 88 | 35 | 23 |
| Estepona | 29 days | 89 | 24 | 31 |
Median per station across 9 winters (1 November – 31 March), AEMET official daily records. The figure is for the weather station, not the whole municipality.
Across the 73 Canary stations the median run is 8 days, against 90 on the mainland. These are the ten driest of the islands' stations with at least 140 terrace days a winter — that is, out of 1359 winter days measured, almost all of them warm enough to be outside.
| Where | Worst run without a terrace day |
Terrace days a winter | Heating nights (below 10 °C) |
Rain days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mogán, Puerto | 1 days | 149 | 0 | 5 |
| Mogán, Puerto Rico | 2 days | 151 | 0 | 5 |
| Tuineje,Puerto Gran Tarajal | 2 days | 151 | 1 | 6 |
| Fuerteventura Aeropuerto | 1 days | 150 | 0 | 7 |
| Tenerife Sur Aeropuerto | 1 days | 151 | 0 | 7 |
| Maspalomas, C. Insular Turismo | 1 days | 150 | 0 | 7 |
| Pájara | 2 days | 149 | 0 | 7 |
| Yaiza Playa Blanca | 4 days | 150 | 0 | 7 |
| San Bartolome Tirajana, el Matorral | 1 days | 151 | 0 | 8 |
| Tazacorte | 1 days | 150 | 0 | 8 |
Three things the data says that a holiday brochure will not:
One: altitude beats latitude. Going south is not enough — a town at 700 m in Andalusia can be colder through the winter than the coast of Galicia. What decides is how far you are from the sea and how high you are.
Two: rain and cold are different problems. Some of the mildest places on this list are also among the wettest. If you are staying three months, check both columns.
Three: the worst winter matters more than the typical one. Every figure here is a median across nine winters, but the column that should worry you is the run — because that is the one you cannot wait out.
We do not run accommodation and we do not rank it. These are searches on Booking.com for the areas above, which is where the long-stay rates are — monthly stays are usually far cheaper per night than a week.
Divulgación: esta página contiene enlaces de afiliado de Booking.com. Si reservas a través de ellos, podemos recibir una comisión sin coste adicional para ti. La certificación climática se basa en datos oficiales de AEMET y es independiente de la relación de afiliación: certifica el clima de la zona, no el interior del establecimiento.
Nine winters (1 November – 31 March, 2017–2025) of official AEMET daily records, from 806 weather stations with at least seven complete winters. A terrace day is a day with a maximum of 18 °C or above; a heating night, a minimum below 10 °C; a rain day, any day with measurable precipitation. Every figure is a median per station except the run, which is the single worst unbroken stretch recorded.
Nothing here is interpolated or modelled: if no station measured it, we do not publish it. Download the full table (CSV) · AEMET OpenData