Da Nang and Hoi An have a dry season and a wet season, and the switch is abrupt. From February to August the coast is dry, sunny and steadily hotter — highs climb from about 26°C in February to 35°C in June, and February to April each average only 20-35 mm of rain. From September to December the northeast monsoon arrives and roughly three-quarters of the year's 2,155 mm falls in four months, peaking at about 650 mm in October, when typhoons are also most likely and Hoi An's riverside Old Town floods most years. Come April to August for the beach, late January to April for Hoi An on foot, and treat September to December as a season to book flexibly rather than avoid.
One page covers both places because they share a climate. Hoi An lies about 20-30 km south-east of central Da Nang, on the same coastal plain, and since the 2025 provincial merger it sits inside Da Nang City. The standard long-run datasets keep no separate record for Hoi An, so every figure below comes from Da Nang's station — the same averages we use in our October guide and the rest of our month-by-month pages.
Da Nang and Hoi An weather at a glance
The table gives long-run monthly averages for Da Nang from Climates to Travel. Read the rain column with the rain-days column: November's 430 mm over 20 days is a very different month from August's 115 mm over 11.
| Month | High | Low | Rain | Rain days | Sun (h/day) | Sea |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 25.2°C | 19.2°C | 85 mm | 12 | 4.5 | 24°C |
| February | 26.4°C | 20°C | 25 mm | 6 | 5 | 23.5°C |
| March | 28.5°C | 21.7°C | 20 mm | 4 | 6 | 24.5°C |
| April | 31.1°C | 23.6°C | 35 mm | 5 | 7 | 26°C |
| May | 33.6°C | 25°C | 85 mm | 10 | 8 | 28.5°C |
| June | 35°C | 25.9°C | 90 mm | 9 | 8 | 29.5°C |
| July | 34.5°C | 25.5°C | 85 mm | 9 | 8 | 29.5°C |
| August | 34.1°C | 25.3°C | 115 mm | 11 | 7 | 29.5°C |
| September | 32.1°C | 24.4°C | 310 mm | 14 | 6 | 29.5°C |
| October | 29.6°C | 23.2°C | 650 mm | 20 | 4.5 | 28°C |
| November | 27.7°C | 21.9°C | 430 mm | 20 | 4 | 26.5°C |
| December | 25.3°C | 20°C | 215 mm | 18 | 3.5 | 25°C |
Two numbers explain the year. The four months from September to December deliver about 1,605 mm, three-quarters of the annual total. The three months from February to April deliver about 80 mm between them.
February to April: the comfortable dry season
This is the stretch to choose if the point of the trip is walking. Highs run from 26.4°C in February to 31.1°C in April, rain almost disappears — March averages 20 mm over four days — and sunshine climbs from five to seven hours a day. Hoi An's Old Town, where most of the day is spent on foot between assembly halls, tailors and cafés, is at its most pleasant, and the lantern-lit evenings are dry.
The sea is the catch early on. February and March average 23.5-24.5°C in the water, fine for a swim but well short of summer. By April the water is 26°C and the beach season has effectively begun.
May to August: hot beach season
From May the coast turns hot. Highs average 33.6°C in May and peak at 35°C in June, lows stay near 25-26°C, and the sea reaches 28.5-29.5°C. Rain rises a little — 85-115 mm a month — but sunshine holds at seven to eight hours a day, and this is the calmest, clearest sea of the year. For a beach-first trip, these are the months.
The trade-off is heat for anything on foot. Midday in Hoi An's Old Town in June is hard work, and the sensible pattern is sightseeing early and late, beach or shade in the middle of the day. A minor typhoon window runs from late April to late June, but storms in it are rarer and generally weaker than in autumn.
September to December: the wet season
The monsoon changes the coast in September. Rain jumps to about 310 mm over 14 days, then to the October peak of roughly 650 mm over 20 days — around 30 percent of the year's rain in a single month. November stays very wet at about 430 mm over 20 days, and December eases to about 215 mm over 18. Sunshine drops to three and a half to four and a half hours a day from October.
This is also the main typhoon season. On this stretch of coast it runs from the beginning of September to about 10 December, and autumn landfalls concentrate on the central provinces. Storm tracks are hard to call more than a few days out, which is why the useful response is flexibility rather than avoidance.
How Hoi An floods, and what 2025 showed
Hoi An floods because of where it is, not because it rains more. The Old Town is built on the Thu Bon estuary, and when days of monsoon rain upstream meet high water at the coast, the river backs up into the riverside streets. In most years this means a day or two of water in the lowest blocks and a clean-up once it drains.
October 2025 was the extreme case. The ASEAN AHA Centre's flash update recorded the Thu Bon at Cau Lau at 5.62 m on 30 October, 0.14 m above the historic 1964 flood, and more than 128,000 houses flooded across four central provinces. VnExpress reported that the water left Hoi An's Old Town on 31 October, leaving mud and debris behind, and that Da Nang received 300-600 mm of rain between 22 and 29 October.
That year is the outer edge, not the norm. The practical lessons are the same either way:
- Book refundable anything from late September to early December.
- Choose a room away from the riverfront streets of the Old Town if your dates fall in October or November.
- Watch the national forecast from NCHMF in the week you travel, and check it daily through the wet season.
- Have a Da Nang fallback. It is the easier place to wait out a wet day, with the airport a few kilometres from the centre.
Month by month
January is the transition. Rain falls to about 85 mm over 12 days, highs are a mild 25°C, and the sky is still often grey, with four and a half hours of sun. Good for Hoi An if you do not need the beach.
February and March are the most comfortable months for sightseeing: 25 mm and 20 mm of rain, highs of 26-28.5°C, and far fewer wet days than any other time of year. Tet falls on 6 February in 2027, which fills domestic transport and hotels around the holiday — see our Tet 2027 guide.
April is the sweet spot for doing everything: 35 mm of rain, highs of 31°C, a 26°C sea and seven hours of sun a day.
May to August is beach season: hot, 85-115 mm of rain a month, and the warmest, calmest sea. Plan walking for early morning and evening.
September is the hinge. The sea is still 29.5°C and the first half of the month is often usable, but rain triples to about 310 mm and typhoon season has begun.
October is the wettest month by a distance and the likeliest to flood. Travel only with refundable bookings and a buffer day.
November stays very wet, about 430 mm over 20 days, with surf and red flags on the open beaches.
December eases to about 215 mm but remains grey, with the least sunshine of the year at three and a half hours a day. Typhoon exposure ends around 10 December.
What the weather means for your plans
The beach. My Khe and An Bang are open-ocean beaches, and from October the northeast monsoon pushes surf onto both. For swimming, April to August is the reliable window; the water is warm enough the rest of the year, but the sea often is not calm. Our Da Nang vs Nha Trang comparison sets the two beach cities side by side, seasons included.
Day trips. Anything that depends on a view — the Hai Van Pass, Ba Na Hills, the Son Tra peninsula — rewards clear air, and the October-to-December months average only three and a half to four and a half hours of sun a day. Schedule those trips for the dry season, and keep a cooking class or Da Nang's Museum of Cham Sculpture for wet days. Our guides to day trips from Da Nang and day trips from Hoi An cover both.
Where to base. In the dry season Hoi An is the more atmospheric base; in the wet season Da Nang is the more resilient one. Our Da Nang or Hoi An base guide goes through the trade-offs, and the where-to-stay guides for Hoi An and Da Nang cover neighbourhoods.
The lantern night. Hoi An's full-moon lantern night runs every lunar month, and the wet-season dates are the ones most likely to be rained off. The festival calendar atlas lists the dates.
For the wider country, our month-by-month guide sets this coast against the north and south, and the rainy season guide covers travelling through the wet months anywhere.
Limitations
Every figure above is a long-run average from one station, and single years can differ sharply from it — October 2025 set records, while other Octobers pass with little more than wet streets. There is no separate long-run record for Hoi An in the standard datasets, so Da Nang's figures stand in for it; the climate is the same, but flood behaviour is not, because Hoi An sits on the river. Different sources also publish different normals for the same station, so expect rainfall figures elsewhere to vary by 10-20 percent.
Typhoon tracks cannot be forecast reliably more than a few days ahead, and the season's boundaries shift from year to year. Workaround: use this page to choose the month, then rely on the NCHMF forecast and refundable bookings to handle the week itself.