DE LEON SPRINGS · FLORIDA · JANUARY
An average high of 71.2°F, an average low of 51.8°F and 2.61 inches of rain across the month: that is the January baseline in the DeLand country around De Leon Springs. Of December, January and February, this is the coolest month at both ends of the day, and the shortest on light, with 10 hours 32 minutes of it on January 15.
The water in a Florida spring run holds close to the same temperature all year while the air around it moves with the season, and that gap is what a winter visit turns on. Where to sleep statewide, how the driving works and what a Florida week costs belong elsewhere: our where-to-stay guide, the getting-around guide and the trip cost guide carry those. The date questions stay here.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · DE LEON SPRINGS · JANUARY
January is the coolest of the three winter months here, 71.2°F by day and 51.8°F at night, which makes it a walking and wildlife month with the swim penciled in for early afternoon.
COOLEST OF THE THREE WINTER MONTHS · 3.8 RAIN DAYS · SUNSET AT 5:50 PM
Go for: midday walking at 71.2°F, manatee watching along Blue Spring’s boardwalk after a cold night, and a spring swim timed for 1 pm.
Think twice before: planning a swimsuit-first week: the average night runs 51.8°F, and an average January carries 0.8 nights at or below freezing.
Normals: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, station USW00012841 · Daylight: sunrise-sunset.org · full sources at the end
On this page
- De Leon Springs weather in JanuaryHighs of 71.2°F, lows of 51.8°F, 3.8 rain days
- Is it warm enough for a January swim?The 19.4°F swing and the freezing dawns
- Crowds and prices in JanuaryDry season, booking and what we could not verify
- Things to do in JanuaryDe Leon Springs State Park, Blue Spring, DeLand
- A two-day plan around 10h 32m of daylightTwo days between 7:18 am and 5:50 pm
- January vs December and FebruaryHow the three months compare in °F and inches
- Is January a good month to come?Who should book it and who should wait
- Where else to go in Florida this winterFlorida month by month
Two figures shape a January day here more than the rest: a 19.4°F gap between the average low and the average high, and a sun that goes down at 5:50 pm on the 15th. Plan the swim for the early afternoon and keep the driving inside daylight.
De Leon Springs weather in January: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | January normal |
|---|---|
| Average high | 71.2°F |
| Average low | 51.8°F |
| Precipitation | 2.61 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 3.8 |
| Days with 1 in or more | 0.7 |
| Nights at 32°F or below | 0.8 |
| Daylight, January 15 | 10h 32m |
| Sunrise / sunset, January 15 | 7:18 am / 5:50 pm |
Every figure here comes from NOAA NCEI’s 1991-2020 monthly normals at station USW00012841, a real thermometer rather than a modeled grid cell, and the difference matters: reanalysis products can sit several degrees off on the overnight minimum. The gauge does not stand at the spring. The same record also serves Blue Spring, about 9 miles (15 km) south, so read 71.2°F by day and 51.8°F at night as the DeLand-area baseline rather than a reading taken at the water’s edge.
An average January records 3.8 days with at least a tenth of an inch, so measurable rain lands roughly one day in eight. The other seven are dry enough that most visitors never unzip the rain jacket. A tenth of an inch is a shower you sit out for twenty minutes, and it rarely reorganizes an afternoon. The monthly total, 2.61 inches, is the wettest of the three winter months, which says more about one or two big days than about drizzle.
The 19.4°F between the average low and the average high arrives on a predictable schedule: the cold hour is the one before sunrise, the warm window runs from late morning to mid-afternoon. Pack for both ends of it. A fleece and a light windbreaker cover a 52°F dawn, a T-shirt covers 2 pm, and anyone getting in the water wants a towel plus a full change of dry clothes in the car.
On January 15 the sun rises at 7:18 am and sets at 5:50 pm, giving 10 hours 32 minutes of daylight. Under cypress cover the usable light goes before the official sunset, so a trail started at 4:30 pm becomes a headlamp decision. The practical cut-off for a swim is closer to 3 pm, when the air is still near its daily peak.
How warm is De Leon Springs in January?
The month’s two anchors are 71.2°F by day and 51.8°F at night, a swing of 19.4°F. December swings 18.6°F and February 20.0°F, so the daily spread is normal for the season and January is simply cooler at both ends. These are averages over thirty years. A single January day can run well above 71°F or well below it, and a cold front moving through the peninsula does both within forty-eight hours.
In practice you dress twice. Long sleeves and a jacket at 8 am, down to a shirt by noon, jacket back on around 4:30 pm. Getting into a spring in January is a decision about the air rather than the water: at 1 pm, with the thermometer near 71°F and sun on the deck, climbing out is easy, and at 4 pm it is a short, cold walk to the car. Families juggling this will find more on our Florida with kids page.
An average January falls to 32°F or below on 0.8 nights, so most Januaries hand you one freezing dawn and a fair number hand you none. Those mornings warm up fast once the sun clears the trees. We could not verify a measured water temperature for the De Leon Springs run, so we publish no figure for it and would rather you ask at the gate than trust a number we did not read.
How busy is De Leon Springs in January? Crowds, prices and the demand peak
January sits inside Florida’s dry season, November through April, the stretch when the state fills with people leaving a real winter behind, and our month-by-month verdict holds the statewide curve. We found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate series for the DeLand area, so we crown no month cheap and no month expensive. The calendar is firmer ground: the New Year holiday runs into the first days, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day adds a three-day weekend in the middle.
We could not verify booking lead times either, so treat the next line as our judgment. Lock the weekend nights three or four weeks out and leave weekdays loose. A Saturday forecast in the low seventies pulls day visitors from Orlando and Daytona toward the springs, and the beds in DeLand are the part of the equation that runs out first.
We could not verify Volusia County’s lodging-tax rate, so we give no percentage and no sample room bill. Read the rate off the tax line of your own booking, which is the only version that will be current on the day you pay. The statewide cost picture, resort fees and parking included, sits in our Florida trip cost guide.
One spend genuinely changes January here, and it is the car rather than the room. With sunset at 5:50 pm, the driving day ends early, the parks and DeLand sit on two-lane roads, and a day that includes both springs needs wheels and a full tank by mid-afternoon. Tolls and transponders are covered in our getting-around guide.
Things to do in De Leon Springs in January
January is the month for walking at noon. With the average high at 71.2°F, the middle of the day is the comfortable hour rather than the one you hide from, and the dry season keeps mosquito pressure low along the lake edges. Wildlife watching works on the same clock, since the coolest mornings are the ones that concentrate animals around warm water.
De Leon Springs State Park holds the swimming pool fed by the run, shaded trails toward the Lake Woodruff marshes, and the Old Spanish Sugar Mill Griddle House, where the tables have built-in griddles and you pour your own pancake batter. Nine miles (15 km) south, Blue Spring State Park runs its boardwalk along the spring run. DeLand’s downtown, a short drive east, carries the lunch and coffee options neither park does.
What the month changes is the air, not the water. The run holds its temperature while the air moves 19.4°F inside a single day, so the swim becomes a question of timing: in at 1 pm and the water feels generous, in at 4 pm and you dry off as the thermometer slides back toward the fifties. Cold snaps do a second thing. Manatees move into warm spring runs when the river cools, and Blue Spring’s boardwalk is where people watch them (our manatee guide covers the rules).
Check the parks’ own pages for current entry fees the week you travel. What costs nothing in January is the part of the day you can spend outside without negotiating with the heat: 10 hours 32 minutes of light on the 15th, with the warmest hour sitting at 71.2°F.
De Leon Springs in January: a two-day itinerary
Day one runs with the light. Sunrise at 7:18 am, breakfast at the griddle house when the park opens, then the trails from 9 am while the air is still in the fifties and sixties and the walking is at its best. Around noon the temperature reaches its daily peak, so that is the hour for the spring pool. Lunch dries you out by 2:30 pm, the lakeshore takes the last soft hour, and you are back at the car before 5:50 pm.
Day two drops south to Blue Spring for the boardwalk at opening, which is when a cold night pays off, then swings into DeLand for lunch and the afternoon. If the rain lands (3.8 days in an average January reach a tenth of an inch), keep the boardwalk, which works under a jacket, and move the swim to the next afternoon. A tenth of an inch is not a day off.
De Leon Springs in January vs December and February
| Measure | December | January | February |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 73.1°F | 71.2°F | 74.3°F |
| Average low | 54.5°F | 51.8°F | 54.3°F |
| Precipitation | 2.28 in | 2.61 in | 2.06 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 3.4 | 3.8 | 3.4 |
February runs 3.1°F warmer by day and 2.5°F warmer at night than January, on 0.55 inch less rain. December sits between them for daytime warmth at 73.1°F and keeps its nights 2.7°F above January’s. Rain days barely separate the three: 3.4 in December and February against 3.8 in January.
Shift four weeks forward and you buy the warmest afternoons of the winter plus the driest month of the three, at the cost of the freezing dawns that push manatees into the runs. Shift four weeks back and you gain 1.9°F on the daytime average, then hand it straight back to the holiday weeks and their competition for rooms. January is the trade in the middle: cooler air, slightly more rain, a calendar that empties after the first week.
Is January a good time to visit De Leon Springs?
Yes, if your day is built around walking, wildlife and one well-timed swim. A 71.2°F afternoon is close to ideal for trails, and the cool nights are what make the boardwalk worth a 9 am start. No, if the plan is a swimsuit from breakfast to sunset. Average nights of 51.8°F and a sunset at 5:50 pm cut that kind of day down to about three usable hours.
If that is your trip, take February instead: 74.3°F days, 54.3°F nights and 2.06 inches of rain, the driest and warmest of the three winter months in this record. The gain is modest in degrees and real in feel, mostly because the mornings start higher.
What January holds alone is the cold end of the winter, those 0.8 freezing nights that fill the warm spring runs with manatees while the afternoon still climbs past 70°F.
The last word
Book the dates, throw a fleece in the bag for a 52°F dawn, and decide the swim at 1 pm rather than at breakfast. One figure we have held back: 0.7 day in an average January records an inch of rain or more, so roughly two Januaries in three take one genuine soaking and the rest take none. Keep a single afternoon loose and that is the one you spend in DeLand, twelve minutes east, with pancakes already behind you.
Sources & data for this guide
- January normals (high 71.2°F, low 51.8°F, 2.61 in) · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00012841 · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Rain-day counts (3.8 days at 0.10 in or more, 0.7 day at 1 in or more) and 0.8 nights at 32°F or below · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, same station · checked Sep 24, 2026
- December and February normals used in the comparison table · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, same station · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight of 10h 32m, sunrise 7:18 am and sunset 5:50 pm on January 15 · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Gauge caveat: the station does not stand at the spring, and the same record serves Blue Spring about 9 miles (15 km) south · NOAA NCEI · checked Sep 24, 2026
- We found no occupancy or monthly room-rate series for the DeLand area, and we could not verify the county lodging-tax rate, either park’s entry fee, or a measured water temperature for the spring runs, so we quote none of them.
- Park hours, fees and manatee-season arrangements change · check the parks before you drive.