Óbidos in December: Weather, Rain Days and Short Daylight

PORTUGAL · ÓBIDOS · DECEMBER

An average December day in Óbidos climbs to 59.5°F (15.3°C) and falls back to 51.4°F (10.8°C) after dark. Rain measures on 9.4 days of the month for a total of 2.70 inches, and on December 15 the sun clears the horizon at 7:49 am and is gone by 5:16 pm.

Mild, wet and short of light: that is what the date does to a walled hill town an hour off the Atlantic. December is drier than November by 1.16 inches and by one rain day, and its afternoons run 1.4°F above January’s. If you are still choosing a month rather than a trip, our twelve-month verdict compares all of them, and the town in any season sits in our Óbidos guide.

On this page

• Óbidos weather in December59.5°F days, 2.70 inches, 9.4 rain days
• How cold the mornings get51.4°F at dawn, and the swimming question
• Crowds and prices in DecemberWhat we could price, and what we could not
• Things to do in Óbidos in DecemberThe walls, Rua Direita, Santa Maria, the aqueduct
• A two-day plan around 9h 28m of lightHour by hour, from 7:49 am
• December vs November and JanuaryHow the three months compare, degree by degree
• Is December a good time to visit?Yes for walkers, no for water

Every normal below comes from one coastal thermometer, and the neighboring months have pages of their own with their own figures: Óbidos in November and Óbidos in January.

Óbidos weather in December: average highs, lows and rain days

Every figure here comes from IPMA, the Portuguese weather service, and from one named instrument: station 531 at Cabo Carvoeiro, Peniche, 105 feet above the sea, reading the 1991-2020 normals. That is a real thermometer, not a model grid cell. It stands on the open coast while Óbidos sits slightly inland behind its walls, so nights in town can run below what the station records, and any higher ground nearby is colder and considerably wetter.

The month totals 2.70 inches, spread across 9.4 days that register at least 1 mm (0.04 inch). Rain shows up on roughly three days in ten. The other seven stay dry enough for the ramparts. A real soaking, 10 mm (0.39 inch) or more, lands on 2.2 days, about one day in fourteen. One caution on those counts: they use IPMA’s thresholds, not the 0.10-inch threshold American tables use, so they are not interchangeable with a US city’s rain-day figure.

The gap between day and night is only 8.1°F, narrow enough that a single mid-weight layer covers both ends of the day. Water is the harder problem. With rain on close to a third of the calendar, a hood beats an umbrella on a rampart where the wind has nothing to stop it, and shoes with grip beat anything smooth on wet limestone. Our packing guide carries the full winter list.

On December 15 the sun rises at 7:49 am and sets at 5:16 pm, for 9 hours 28 minutes of daylight. Mainland Portugal runs on UTC through the winter, so those are clock times rather than conversions. Breakfast happens in the dark for early risers, and anything you hoped to photograph from the walls has to be done before five.

How warm is Óbidos in December?

The average high is 59.5°F (15.3°C), the average low 51.4°F (10.8°C), a spread of 8.1°F. November’s spread is 7.6°F and January’s 8.3°F. Between November and December the night end moves further than the day end: lows fall 3.6°F while highs fall 3.1°F.

In practice, a 51.4°F morning on damp cobbles asks for a jacket and grip, and a 59.5°F afternoon in sun usually has you carrying the jacket by lunch. Swimming is a different question and we cannot answer it with a figure: we found no sea-surface series for this stretch of coast, so we give no water temperature. If you read one elsewhere, check whether it is an average of daily maxima, which runs a little warmer than a 24-hour mean.

We could not verify a frost-day count for the town or for the station. What the record does say is that the December average low at Cabo Carvoeiro sits more than 19°F above freezing, and that a coastal reading at 105 feet is the mildest number in the area. Fields inland at dawn run colder than that, and a clear, still night is when the difference shows up on a windshield.

How busy is Óbidos in December? Crowds and prices

December falls outside Portugal’s summer peak, and that is a calendar fact rather than a price. We found no occupancy series and no monthly room rates for Óbidos, so we crown no month cheapest and quote no nightly figure. What a Portuguese trip costs in broad strokes lives in our cost guide, and the transatlantic side of the budget is in flights from the US.

Build the number of nights around daylight instead of around a rate. With 9 hours 28 minutes of light on December 15, one night buys a single short day, two nights buy a full one plus a sunrise on the walls, and a third only makes sense if you are using the town as a base for the coast. We verified no booking lead times for December, so treat any number of weeks ahead as judgment rather than data.

We could not verify a lodging-tax rate for Óbidos, so we give no percentage. If a municipal charge does apply it is collected at the property and does not always appear in an online quote, so ask at check-in and leave a small unknown in the budget.

The one place where paying more genuinely changes this month is transport. Rain on 9.4 days means one day of a two-day stay may need rerouting, and a car does that in minutes where a timetable does not. Tolls and insurance are covered in our car guide, and the bus and train picture is in getting around Portugal.

Things to do in Óbidos in December

At the station’s threshold, an average December leaves about 21 dry days out of 31, a day and a half more than November manages out of 30. The sun also stays low from morning to evening. On the ramparts that means raking light across the roofs for most of the afternoon rather than for twenty minutes, and a full circuit at 59.5°F with one layer on.

The places sit close together and take a morning between them: the wall circuit above the lanes, Rua Direita running from gate to castle end, the tiled porch inside Porta da Vila, Igreja de Santa Maria on its small square, and the aqueduct arches on the approach below the hill. Ginjinha poured into a little chocolate cup is the standing ritual along the street. We could not verify December opening hours or ticket prices for the churches and the castle, so we quote none: read the boards at the door.

What the month changes is the surface, not the map. Rain on 9.4 days leaves the limestone polished and slick, and the rampart path is narrow, uneven and open at the edge. On the 2.2 days that bring 0.39 inch or more, take the street-level loop and save the walls for the next dry morning. The stone is identical in July. The 59.5°F air and the wet are what make it a different walk.

Most of December here costs nothing. Walking the ramparts and the lanes is free, the aqueduct stands at the roadside, and the low sun does its best work between four o’clock and the 5:16 pm sunset. We could not confirm dates or prices for any December event in the town, so we name none and promise none.

Óbidos in December: a two-day itinerary

Day one runs on the light. Coffee at eight, on the walls by half past while the sun is still at a low angle, down Rua Direita around 10:30 as the shops open. Lunch indoors at noon. Santa Maria and the castle end of the street from two, when the 59.5°F afternoon is at its warmest. Back up on the ramparts at 4:15 for the last hour, and down again before 5:16 pm, since little lights that path once the sun goes.

Day two depends on the sky. Dry forecast: the aqueduct walk below the walls in the morning, the lanes in the afternoon. If one of December’s 2.2 heavy days lands on you, invert it. A long indoor lunch, the churches, the ginjinha counter, then a short wall loop if the rain breaks. Even a ten o’clock start leaves more than seven hours of light.

Óbidos in December vs November and January

November holds 62.6°F by day and 55.0°F at night, with 3.86 inches over 10.5 rain days. December reads 59.5 and 51.4, with 2.70 inches over 9.4 days. January slides to 58.1 and 49.8 and puts 0.28 inch back on the total over 10.4 days. Of the three, December is the driest on both the total and the count, and it is the milder of the two true winter months. No water temperature is verified for any of them, so that row stays empty.

Shifting four weeks earlier gains 3.1°F on the afternoon and 3.6°F on the night, and costs 1.16 inches of extra rain plus one more rain day. Shifting four weeks later costs 1.4°F by day and 1.6°F after dark for almost the same rain. Neither move changes what there is to see, and neither is a big enough swing to rescue a plan built around water.

Is December a good time to visit Óbidos?

Yes if you came to walk a small stone town in a jacket, and yes if you photograph: 59.5°F afternoons and low sun are a good pairing. No if the trip depends on the water, on long evenings, or on a guaranteed dry stretch. With 9.4 rain days across 31, the odds of catching one sit near one day in three.

If the answer is no, the month to prefer is not November, whose 3.86 inches and 10.5 rain days are worse on both counts, but a spring month with a long day. We hold no spring normals for Óbidos here, so check our twelve-month verdict before moving the dates.

Among the three months around it, December alone pairs the lowest rain total with afternoons that still reach 59.5°F.

The last word

Take two nights rather than one, and give the first dry morning to the ramparts before anything else opens. On December 15 the sun is above the horizon for under 40 percent of the day, and the share of that falling on the walls at a useful angle is shorter still. Everything else worth your time sits within the same few lanes, roof and all.

Sources & data for this guide

• December normals, rain-day counts and thresholds · IPMA, station 531 Cabo Carvoeiro (Peniche), 105 feet, 1991-2020 normals · checked Sep 24, 2026
• November and January normals · IPMA, same station and same 1991-2020 period · checked Sep 24, 2026
• Sunrise 7:49 am, sunset 5:16 pm and 9h 28m of daylight on December 15 · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
• The station sits on the coast at Peniche and Óbidos stands slightly inland behind its walls: higher ground nearby is colder and wetter than these figures.
• We found no sea-surface temperature series for this coast, so we give no water temperature.
• We found no occupancy series and no monthly room rates, so we rank no month by price, and we could not verify a lodging-tax rate.
• We could not confirm December event dates or ticket prices in the town, so we name none. Opening hours and admission change: check at the door when you go.

To plan your stay

• Best Time to Visit Óbidos: Weather Month by Month, Quiet Months and Summer Heat
• Óbidos in January: Weather, Rain Days and a Two-Day Plan
• Óbidos in November: Weather, Rain Days and How It Compares to October and December
• Óbidos in February: Weather, Rain Days, Crowds and a Two-Day Plan

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