Tenerife Weather

The Weather on Tenerife

First, let's start with the piece of information that most holidaymakers seeking to escape the UK's climate want to know:

It's warm enough to sunbathe every single month of the year on Tenerife.

Even in the coolest winter month, February, the temperature rarely drops below 20°C and that's on any coast ? south, west, east and north. In summer, 30°C is the norm and rain is virtually non-existent in any of the resorts.

However, Tenerife's weather isn't as straightforward as 365 days of wall to wall sunshine, and weather patterns can vary from valley to valley, so any forecast claiming to tell you what the weather is going to be like across the whole of Tenerife should be taken with a barrel of salt.

Saying that, there are certain weather patterns visitors can expect to find in different coastal areas:

South Tenerife

Mostly hot and dry all year round - one look at the landscape is a bit of a giveaway to that one. There is a big difference in temperatures between summer and winter months, but the good news is, it's the difference between 30°+ in summer, and low to mid 20s in winter. It can rain in winter and although it's usually always warm, there are cloudy days.

North Tenerife

The north has a reputation for being cooler and wetter than the south of Tenerife. It's not a completely false statement, but neither does it paint an accurate picture. What it means is that Puerto de la Cruz generally experiences temperatures a couple of degrees lower than in the south. At worst, in the shortest winter days, it averages 5 hours a day of sunshine as opposed to 6 hours in Los Cristianos. It does rain more, hence the lush scenery, but rainfall tends to be short and spectacular and more likely to happen in November and February.

South West Tenerife

In terms of sunshine, the southwest of Tenerife enjoys the most. There really are nearly 365 days of sunshine in this area (freak weather patterns aside). The south west is hot and dry all year round and rain and clouds are sparse.

East Tenerife

Like the south west, the east has more sunshine than both south and north and less rain, but wind is a near-constant companion which is why you find wind farms and fewer resorts on this coast.

The Interior

As soon as you head inland and therefore uphill, temperatures start to drop, especially in winter months. Visitors tend to forget that at the base of Mount Teide in the Teide National Park, they are standing at an altitude more than twice the height of Ben Nevis. T-shirts, shorts and flip flops can feel very flimsy in 5°C.