South Tenerife weather, month by month from October to April
Real climate normals for the south coast, what the sea does, what calima is, and what to actually pack for a winter here.
The short answer: between October and April the south coast of Tenerife averages 21.7 to 26.8 °C by day, 15.0 to 20.0 °C at night, one to three-and-a-half rain days a month, and six to seven hours of sunshine a day. January is the coolest month and April the driest.
The table
| Month | Day °C | Night °C | Sea °C | Rain days | Sun h/day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | 26.8 | 20.0 | 23.7 | 1.6 | 6.9 |
| November | 24.8 | 18.2 | 22.6 | 1.9 | 6.4 |
| December | 22.8 | 16.5 | 21.1 | 3.5 | 6.3 |
| January | 21.7 | 15.2 | 20.0 | 1.8 | 6.2 |
| February | 22.0 | 15.0 | 19.3 | 2.2 | 7.0 |
| March | 23.1 | 15.6 | 19.2 | 1.9 | 7.3 |
| April | 23.1 | 16.0 | 19.6 | 1.1 | 7.3 |
These are AEMET climate normals for the Tenerife Sur airport station, on the same arid coastal strip as Palm-Mar. Annual rainfall there is 132 mm spread across about fifteen rain days — roughly a tenth of what falls on London.
The sea is swimmable all winter, but it is not warm
Sea temperature peaks around 23.7 °C in October and bottoms out near 19.2 °C in March. Nineteen degrees is swimmable for most people and bracing for the rest; the pool in a complex is usually warmer by a couple of degrees in the afternoon sun. Locals swim through the winter, and on 1 January half of southern Tenerife is in the water.
What calima is
Calima is a haze of Saharan dust carried west over the islands on an easterly wind. The sky turns milky, the horizon disappears, temperatures jump, and fine dust settles on everything. It lasts a few days at a time and then clears. It is a weather event rather than a season, and reliable sources do not support the idea that it belongs to specific months.
The north–south split
The single most useful thing to understand about Tenerife weather is that the island has two climates. Trade winds pile cloud against the northern slopes below Teide; the south sits in the rain shadow and stays clear. A grey morning in Puerto de la Cruz and a cloudless one in Los Cristianos is a normal day, not an unusual one.