Orlando in May: Weather, Crowds, Prices and Spring Water Temperatures

ORLANDO, FLORIDA · MAY · 1991-2020 NORMALS

May is the month Orlando’s air arrives at summer while its rain has not. NOAA’s 1991-2020 normals for the gauge at Orlando International Airport give an average high of 88.4°F, an average low of 66.3°F and 4.02 inches of rain across the month. June delivers twice that. Daylight on May 15 runs 13 hours 38 minutes, from 6:33 a.m. to 8:10 p.m. Eastern.

What you trade for that is heat: days run 4.8°F above April, nights 5.6°F above. What you keep is a calendar still clear of the Atlantic hurricane season, which the National Hurricane Center opens on June 1. If you are still choosing the month rather than the trip, the twelve-month view for Florida sorts the state.

On this page

• Orlando weather in May88.4°F high, 66.3°F low, 4.02 inches
• How hot the afternoons get22.1°F between night and mid-afternoon
• Crowds, booking and the room tax6.0% county tax, plus 6% state sales tax
• Things to do near Orlando in MayWekiwa Springs, Blue Spring, Kelly Park
• Two days in Orlando in May6:33 a.m. to 8:10 p.m., hour by hour
• Orlando in May vs April and JuneApril at 2.58 inches, June at 8.05
• Is May a good time to visit Orlando?Yes for early starts, with one heat caveat

Anything that is true of Orlando in any month sits elsewhere: park logistics and the bed you choose in the family guide, arithmetic on flights and nights in what a Florida trip costs, buses and rental cars in getting around. The neighboring months have their own pages: April and June.

Orlando weather in May: average highs, lows and rain days

The normals below come from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012815, which is the thermometer at Orlando International Airport. Those are readings from one instrumented site rather than a reanalysis grid cell averaged across several miles of land, and the difference is measurable elsewhere in Florida. It also means the figures carry an airport’s own surroundings: open tarmac, no tree cover, no lake breeze.

Rain lands on 5.7 days in an average May, about one day in five, and 1.4 of those days top a full inch. Translated into a week of vacation, that is one day where rain moves something around and, in a longer stay, one day where it ends the outdoor plan. The remaining twenty-five days of the month record under a tenth of an inch, which is the number that makes May bookable outdoors at all.

Between 66.3°F before dawn and 88.4°F mid-afternoon there are 22.1 degrees, and both ends of that spread go in the bag. A light long-sleeve covers a 6:33 a.m. trailhead or a pre-opening park queue. After ten in the morning you want the clothes you are willing to sweat through, a hat, and refillable water. Nothing in the normals calls for a jacket.

Daylight on May 15 runs 13 hours 38 minutes: sunrise at 6:33 a.m., sunset at 8:10 p.m. Eastern, converted from the 10:33 and 00:10 UTC in the almanac. Orlando sits east of the Apalachicola River, so it keeps Eastern time under 49 CFR 71.5(f), an hour ahead of Pensacola and Destin. That late sunset is the month’s real gift: dinner outdoors still happens in daylight.

How warm is Orlando in May? 88.4°F days and 66.3°F nights

The 88.4°F figure is an average of daily maximum readings, so individual afternoons run above it, and the 66.3°F low is an average of daily minima reached around dawn. The 22.1-degree spread is wide for a Florida month, and it is front-loaded: the cool part of the day is over by nine in the morning. Set against April’s 83.6°F, May is the first month here where the heat, rather than the rain, decides the schedule.

In practice you dress for two days. Before nine, 66.3°F to the mid-seventies means one layer you can take off and carry. From noon to six, the mid-to-high eighties with Florida humidity means shade, a water bottle and a plan for being indoors, whether that is a queue building, a museum or a hotel room. Anyone walking a park all day in May should build the break in before booking the day.

Freezing nights do not figure in this month. The NOAA normals we read carry no sub-freezing count for May, and a 66.3°F average low leaves no room for one in a normal year. We have not read a daily extremes series for the station, so we give no record and promise no absolute: what we can say is that May packing needs no cold-weather item.

How busy is Orlando in May? Crowds, booking and the 6% county room tax

May falls in the gap in the family vacation calendar. March is the month that fills the Orlando parks with school holidays, while college spring break weighs on the beach towns instead, and there is no single spring break week: university calendars spread across March. May comes after that and before the summer break. One caveat we would rather state than dress up: we read no monthly hotel rate or occupancy series for Orlando, so this page ranks no prices.

Booking lead time is the same missing series, so take the datable point instead: June 1 opens the hurricane season, and a May departure is the last one you can reasonably book non-refundable on weather grounds. Flights arrive at two airports that are not interchangeable. MCO boarded 27,859,783 passengers in calendar year 2024, the busiest in Florida. Sanford SFB boarded 1.4 million and sits north of MCO, though its own site blocked our reads and we give no mileage. Brightline runs Miami to Orlando in about three and a half hours over roughly 235 miles, roughly every two hours, with fares that move by date.

On the bill, Orange County, which holds Orlando and the parks, levies a 6.0% transient rental tax, filed and paid alongside the 6% state sales tax under Florida Department of Revenue form DR-15TDT. That is 12% of the room line before any property-level charge, and resort fees and parking are set by the hotel, not the county, so we quote no amount for them. The cost guide walks through the rest of the stack.

The one place extra money changes a May trip is distance: a bed close enough that you can be off your feet at two in the afternoon is worth more in an 88.4°F month than any upgrade inside it. The cheap version of that mobility is LYNX, the bus network of Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties, at $2.00 a ride with a free transfer. The All-Day Pass is $4.50, and LYNX prints the catch in capitals: ask the operator for it before your money goes in the farebox. It runs from 4:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the next day.

Things to do in Orlando in May: Wekiwa Springs, Blue Spring and Kelly Park

What May allows is a full outdoor day that June starts taking back: 5.7 wet days here against 11.5 next month, and 4.02 inches against 8.05. What it does not allow is manatees. They gather at the springs in winter because the river around them cools while the aquifer discharge stays warm, a mechanism the Southwest Florida Water Management District spells out, and the manatee guide puts that trip in the cold months.

The nearest swimmable spring is Wekiwa Springs State Park, which the state’s 2024 facilities inventory credits with 325 parking spaces, one designated swimming area, one canoe, kayak and tube launch, 15.9 miles of paddling trail, 13.7 miles of hiking trail and 1,435 feet of boardwalk. Blue Spring State Park has 187 spaces, 3,050 feet of boardwalk, three observation platforms and six cabins, and its gauge read 168 cubic feet per second. Rock Springs, the tubing run at Kelly Park, is the third option; Silver Springs, the glass-bottom-boat spring, dwarfs them all with 1,686 spaces and three launches.

Spring water does not follow the calendar; the air does, and that gap is the whole seasonal argument. On September 11, 2026, the USGS gauges read 75.6°F at Wekiwa, 75.0°F at Rock Springs and 74.3°F at Blue Spring. Those are instantaneous readings from one date, not May averages, but the source is plain that the temperature holds through the year. Against a May high of 88.4°F that leaves about 12.8 degrees of relief, where April’s 83.6°F leaves 8.0 and June’s 90.8°F leaves 15.2.

On what any of it costs, two gaps stay open. Florida’s state parks site returns a 403 to our reads, so we publish no entrance fee, no opening hour and no per-park manatee count for May. Theme-park tickets are left to the operator on purpose: Disney and Universal price by date, and a figure written here would be wrong within weeks. The parking counts are the number that plans your morning, since 325 spaces at Wekiwa and 187 at Blue Spring fill early.

Orlando in May: two-day itinerary and sunrise times

Day one starts with the light. Sunrise is 6:33 a.m., so a 7:00 arrival at Wekiwa puts you on the 13.7 miles of trail and the 1,435 feet of boardwalk while the air is still in the seventies. Swim from 11:00, when 75.6°F water reads as relief rather than a shock. Be indoors from 1:00 to 4:00, the hottest stretch of an 88.4°F day. Come out for the evening: the sun does not set until 8:10 p.m.

Day two takes the theme park, with the same midday retreat written into the itinerary rather than improvised, or Blue Spring’s 3,050-foot boardwalk if you would rather drive than queue. Arrive at opening either way, because 187 spaces go fast. If the day lands among the 5.7 wet ones, swap the water morning for the park and keep the indoor booking for the afternoon; a 1-inch day comes around 1.4 times a month and it is worth having the alternative already chosen.

Orlando in May vs April and June: highs, rain and wet days

Across the three months the highs climb 83.6, 88.4, 90.8, and the nights climb faster: 60.7, 66.3, 71.6, which is 10.9 degrees of warmer sleeping between April and June. Rain is where the curve bends. June’s 8.05 inches is double May’s 4.02, spread over 11.5 wet days against 5.7. Spring water sits outside all of it, within 1.3 degrees of 75.6°F whichever month you come, so the gap to the air widens from 8.0 degrees in April to 15.2 in June.

Shift back four weeks and April hands you 4.8 degrees off the afternoon, 1.44 fewer inches of rain and 1.8 fewer wet days, at the cost of a spring swim that feels less earned and nights 5.6 degrees cooler than you may want for a pool. Shift forward and June adds 2.4 degrees, doubles the rain, and opens the hurricane season on the first of the month, which changes how you book rather than how you pack.

Is May a good time to visit Orlando?

Yes, for a trip that gets up early. If your party can be moving at 6:33 a.m., take the break from one to four, and treat the springs as the afternoon plan, May pays out: 25 of its 31 days record under a tenth of an inch of rain, and nothing on the calendar opens the hurricane season until June 1. No, if the group will not surrender the middle of the day, or if the point of the trip was manatees.

If the answer came out no, take April rather than a later month: 83.6°F highs, 60.7°F lows, 2.58 inches of rain over 3.9 wet days. That is roughly five degrees off every afternoon and a third less rain, with the same clear hurricane calendar and the same 75.6°F water waiting at Wekiwa.

What only May holds is the combination: 13 hours 38 minutes of daylight, under half of June’s rainfall, and the last full month before the Atlantic hurricane season opens.

The last word

Choose the bed by how fast it gets you off your feet at two in the afternoon, then set the alarm for 6:33 and let the springs do the cooling. One thing to settle before you go car-free: SunRail, the local commuter train, runs north to south through downtown with stations at DeBary, Altamonte Springs, AdventHealth and Church Street, and its own schedule page lists no airport and no theme-park stop. We could not read a SunRail fare either, since the operator’s fares page prints no amount. Plan the month around a car or the $4.50 LYNX pass.

Sources & data for this guide

• May normals (88.4°F / 66.3°F / 4.02 in) and wet-day counts (5.7 and 1.4) · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012815, Orlando International Airport · checked Sep 11, 2026
• April and June normals used in the comparison table · same NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 series, same station · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Daylight, sunrise and sunset on May 15 (10:33 and 00:10 UTC, converted to Eastern) · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Hurricane season dates and the September 10 peak · NOAA National Hurricane Center · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Orange County 6.0% transient rental tax with the 6% state sales tax · Florida Department of Revenue, form DR-15TDT · checked Sep 11, 2026
• LYNX fares, free transfer and the All-Day Pass rule ($4.50, 4:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.) · LYNX official Fares & Passes · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Parking spaces, boardwalk lengths and trail mileage at Wekiwa, Blue Spring and Silver Springs · Florida DEP Recreational Facilities Inventory, 2024 annual report · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Spring water readings, 75.6°F at Wekiwa, 75.0°F at Rock Springs, 74.3°F and 168 cfs at Blue Spring · USGS National Water Information System, instantaneous values, September 11, 2026
• Winter manatee mechanism · Southwest Florida Water Management District, The Hydrology and Water Quality of Select Springs (2001, revised 2011) · checked Sep 11, 2026
• MCO and SFB passenger boardings, CY2024 · Federal Aviation Administration · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Brightline Miami to Orlando, about 235 miles and three and a half hours · gobrightline.com · checked Sep 11, 2026 · fares deliberately not quoted
• Gaps we did not close: floridastateparks.org returns 403 to our reads, so no park entrance fee or opening hour appears here; SunRail’s fares page prints no amount; Sanford SFB’s site blocked our reads, so no mileage is given; theme-park ticket prices are left to the operator, which prices by date.