Southwest Florida Weather, Month by Month

Everything on this page follows from that. Southwest Florida does not have a spring, a summer, an autumn and a winter. It has a dry season from roughly November to April and a wet season from roughly June to September, with May and October as the turn.

The temperature swing across the year is smaller than almost anywhere people move here from. In Naples the coldest month averages a high of 74.8°F and the warmest averages 90.9°F, so the whole annual range of average afternoons is about sixteen degrees. What changes is not really the heat. It is the humidity, the rain and the overnight low.

Two things below are worth more than any single number. The overnight low is what makes summer feel like summer, not the afternoon high. And two thirds of the year's rain falls in four months, which is why an annual rainfall figure tells you almost nothing on its own.

I am Kris Asquith at Premiere Plus Realty, working across nine Southwest Florida markets. For the practical side of moving here, see the Southwest Florida FAQs.

Measured at Page Field, in the city and away from the water, which is exactly why it reads differently from the two coastal stations.

The inland signature is in both ends of the day. Fort Myers runs hotter than Naples every afternoon from March onward, by better than a degree, and colder every night in winter: a January low of 54.3°F against Naples at 55.9°F. The Gulf flattens both ends of the day on the coast and does not reach this far in.

It is also the wetter end of the coast, taking about eight inches more rain a year than Naples, and August alone averages 10.43 inches.

Figures are National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate normals for 1991 to 2020, measured at Page Field. A normal is a thirty-year average, not a forecast and not last year.

See Fort Myers real estate.

This is worth being straight about rather than quietly filling in.

Estero, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Captiva and Cape Coral do not have published climate normals. There are weather stations near most of them, but they are volunteer rain gauges with no temperature record, and the two that do measure temperature have no 1991 to 2020 normals. Only three locations on this coast publish the full set, and the tables above are all three of them.

Anybody showing you nine separate city tables for this coast has made six of them up. What is true is that these nine markets sit within about fifty miles of one another along a single shoreline, so the differences are small and, more usefully, they are directional. Coastal moderates. Inland exaggerates.

Which reading is nearest to yours:

• Bonita Springs sits between the Naples and Fort Myers stations and reads between them. Its western end, by the beach, behaves like the coastal record.
• Estero is inland and unwatered by the Gulf, so it behaves like Fort Myers: warmer afternoons, cooler winter nights.
• Cape Coral is across the river from Fort Myers and reads much like it, with a little more marine influence in the south and west of the city.
• Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Captiva are barrier islands, so Marco Island is the closer guide than either mainland station: milder winter afternoons, warmer summer nights, more breeze than a number can show.

If your decision turns on a degree and a half, that is worth a conversation rather than a table. Call me on (239) 300-1427.

The annual rainfall figures look enormous against most of the country. Naples takes 49.55 inches a year, Marco Island 53.30 and Fort Myers 57.41. What that number hides is the shape of it.

About two thirds of the year's rain falls in four months. In Naples, June through September account for 32.67 of the 49.55 inches. In Fort Myers it is 38.47 of 57.41. Outside that window it barely rains at all: Naples averages 1.39 inches in November and 1.32 in December.

And wet-season rain here is not all-day rain. It arrives as an afternoon thunderstorm, empties itself hard and fast, and moves on, often leaving a clear evening behind it. Mornings in August are frequently bright. A visitor reading nine inches of August rain pictures a week of grey, and that is not what happens.

What it does mean is lightning, standing water on roads for an hour, and outdoor plans that need an afternoon contingency between June and September.

Less than people expect between the nine cities, and more than people expect between the seasons.

The gap between the warmest and coolest of these three stations is about a degree of average afternoon. That is not a reason to choose one city over another. Whether you are on the water, how far the beach is, whether the community is gated and what the association covers will all matter more to your day than a degree.

The gap between February and August, though, is the whole thing, and it is the one most buyers under-weight because they shop in season. If you are buying a place to live in year round rather than a place to winter, the summer is the half of the year you have not met.

I am Kris Asquith at Premiere Plus Realty, licensed in Florida since March 2011 and working across all nine of these markets. If you want to talk through which city fits how you actually live, call (239) 300-1427. The beaches and the dining pages cover the other halves of the same question.