Climate averages 1991–2020
Vancouver weather
in May.
A mild, wet month: the 5th warmest and the 4th driest of the year.
Long-term climate patterns, not a forecast for a particular trip.
May is a mild month in Vancouver: daytime highs average 15.8°C and nights cool to about 8.4°C. By daytime temperature it is the 5th warmest of the 12 months.
Expect about 117 mm of rain on roughly 13 days, which makes May a wet month (the 4th driest of the 12 months). Daylight, from sunrise to sunset, lasts about 15 h 17 min on an average May day.
The nearest other city in this atlas is North Vancouver (8 km away). In May its highs average 16.1°C, about as warm as Vancouver, with 117 mm of rain.
Among the 86 cities listed in Canada, Vancouver ranks joint 71st of 86 for the warmest May highs and joint 78th of 86 for the driest May (rainfall, lowest first). The mean May high of those 86 cities is 17.0°C; Vancouver is 1.2°C cooler than that mean.
From May to June, average highs rise by 2.4°C to 18.2°C, and monthly rainfall falls from 117 mm to 94 mm.
The annual picture
May in context
Monthly rainfall
Average total · mmAverages from hourly ERA5 reanalysis data. Actual weather varies from year to year. How these numbers are calculated
Every month, side by side
Vancouver climate table
| Month | Average highHigh / low | Average low | Rainfall mm/month | Rain days ≥1 mm/day | Daylight hours/dayDaylight h/day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 5.4°C1.1°C | 1.1°C | 316 | 19.0 | 8.79 h |
| February | 6.9°C1.3°C | 1.3°C | 191 | 15.6 | 10.110 h |
| March | 8.9°C2.7°C | 2.7°C | 252 | 19.2 | 11.912 h |
| April | 11.9°C5.0°C | 5.0°C | 175 | 16.9 | 13.714 h |
| May, selected | 15.8°C8.4°C | 8.4°C | 117 | 12.5 | 15.315 h |
| June | 18.2°C11.3°C | 11.3°C | 94 | 11.5 | 16.216 h |
| July | 21.6°C14.0°C | 14.0°C | 53 | 6.6 | 15.816 h |
| August | 21.8°C14.4°C | 14.4°C | 73 | 7.4 | 14.414 h |
| September | 18.6°C11.9°C | 11.9°C | 125 | 10.2 | 12.713 h |
| October | 12.9°C7.7°C | 7.7°C | 246 | 16.3 | 10.811 h |
| November | 8.0°C3.8°C | 3.8°C | 349 | 19.9 | 9.29 h |
| December | 5.1°C1.3°C | 1.3°C | 307 | 19.4 | 8.38 h |
Rainfall is the average of the 30 separate monthly totals. A rain day is a local calendar day with at least 1 mm of precipitation. Daylight is the calculated sunrise-to-sunset length, not measured sunshine.
Compare places
May in nearby cities
- North Vancouver in MayCanada · 8 kmHigh 16.1°C · Low 8.4°C · 117 mm rain
- Burnaby in MayCanada · 12 kmHigh 16.4°C · Low 8.0°C · 117 mm rain
- New Westminster in MayCanada · 16 kmHigh 16.6°C · Low 7.1°C · 117 mm rain
- Delta in MayCanada · 18 kmHigh 16.8°C · Low 8.8°C · 69 mm rain
- Coquitlam in MayCanada · 25 kmHigh 17.4°C · Low 7.7°C · 134 mm rain
- Surrey in MayCanada · 27 kmHigh 16.7°C · Low 7.3°C · 85 mm rain
- Langley in MayCanada · 37 kmHigh 17.2°C · Low 7.5°C · 85 mm rain
- Maple Ridge in MayCanada · 38 kmHigh 17.1°C · Low 7.2°C · 154 mm rain
Read the numbers correctly
Climate, not a promise.
These patterns help compare months. They cannot tell you the weather on a specific day of your trip.
Sources, method and limitsHow these numbers are made (what the highs, lows and rain days mean, the sources and the model cell used for Vancouver) is explained once on the Vancouver year overview and on the Sources, method and limits page.
Burnaby, North Vancouver and New Westminster lie in the same rainfall cell, so their rainfall figures are identical to these; temperatures differ because they come from smaller 0.1° cells.