Weather and Climate When Choosing a City
Last updated: 11 October 2026
Weather is easy to underestimate when you plan a move. It shapes your heating and cooling bills, how you get around, what you do at weekends and, for many people, how happy they feel through the year. This guide explains how to read the temperature and rainfall figures on Placeivo and what they can and cannot tell you.
What we show
Each city page shows two figures for the last full calendar year:
- Average temperature: the mean of every day’s average temperature across the year.
- Total rainfall: all the rain (and melted snow) that fell during the year, in millimetres.
Both come from the Open-Meteo historical weather archive, which is based on the ERA5 reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Values are for the city centre.
One year of weather is not the climate
Climate is usually described as the average over 30 years. A single year can be warmer, colder, wetter or drier than normal. So treat our figures as “what last year was like”, not as a promise for the years ahead. Where a decision really depends on climate, for example a health condition affected by heat or damp, look for the long-term averages published by the national weather service.
2025 temperature and rainfall in 27 capitals
| City | Average temperature | Total rainfall |
|---|---|---|
| Nicosia | 20.5 °C | 238 mm |
| Valletta | 20.4 °C | 485 mm |
| Athens | 18.9 °C | 566 mm |
| Lisbon | 17.6 °C | 975 mm |
| Rome | 17.3 °C | 1,024 mm |
| Madrid | 16.2 °C | 680 mm |
| Paris | 12.8 °C | 763 mm |
| Budapest | 12.5 °C | 522 mm |
| London | 12.4 °C | 613 mm |
| Zagreb | 12.3 °C | 811 mm |
| Brussels | 12.0 °C | 630 mm |
| Sofia | 11.9 °C | 605 mm |
| Bratislava | 11.7 °C | 537 mm |
| Vienna | 11.5 °C | 631 mm |
| Dublin | 11.4 °C | 1,173 mm |
| Ljubljana | 11.3 °C | 1,184 mm |
| Berlin | 10.7 °C | 611 mm |
| Prague | 10.5 °C | 512 mm |
| Luxembourg | 10.5 °C | 824 mm |
| Copenhagen | 10.2 °C | 556 mm |
| Warsaw | 10.1 °C | 631 mm |
| Riga | 8.7 °C | 907 mm |
| Stockholm | 8.3 °C | 541 mm |
| Vilnius | 8.2 °C | 839 mm |
| Tallinn | 7.8 °C | 913 mm |
| Oslo | 7.7 °C | 884 mm |
| Helsinki | 7.7 °C | 840 mm |
Source: Open-Meteo historical weather archive (ERA5), calendar year 2025, city centre.
How to read these numbers
- The yearly average hides the seasons. Two cities with the same average can feel very different: one may have mild winters and mild summers, the other cold winters and hot summers. Central European cities such as Vienna, Prague and Warsaw usually have a bigger gap between winter and summer than coastal cities such as Dublin or Lisbon.
- Rainfall totals do not tell you how often it rains. A city can have a high total from a few heavy storms or a low total spread over many grey, drizzly days.
- Location within the city matters. Hills, the sea and dense city centres all change local temperatures.
How climate affects your budget
Weather is not only about comfort. Cold winters mean heating costs; hot summers may mean paying for air conditioning. Wet, windy cities make cycling and walking less pleasant, which can push up transport spending. When you compare cities on cost, consider which of these will apply to you. Our guide to comparing the cost of living covers the money side, and our salary needed pages show the income you need for rent in each capital.
Questions to ask yourself
- How do I cope with long, dark winters, or with summer heat?
- Do I plan to walk, cycle or drive most of the time?
- Will my home have good heating, insulation or cooling?
- Do I or anyone in my family have health needs affected by heat, cold or damp?
General information only. For long-term climate averages, see your destination’s national weather service. See our methodology.