DE LEON SPRINGS · FLORIDA · MAY
De Leon Springs sits in the flat green country west of Daytona, and in May it runs hot early and light late. The NOAA normals put the average afternoon at 88.2°F and the average night at 68.7°F, with 3.66 inches of rain spread over about five wet days. That combination makes a swimming month with room left in it: the daily buildup has not yet settled into its summer routine, and the sun is still up past eight.
Most trips here run to two nights, one for the spring itself and one for Blue Spring and DeLand, with a rental car doing all the work between them. You can fly into Orlando (MCO) or Daytona Beach (DAB) and drive out the same morning: our flights guide covers the gateways, and getting around Florida explains why the car is not optional in Volusia County.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · DE LEON SPRINGS
May gives you 88.2°F afternoons, 13 hours 39 minutes of daylight and 3.66 inches of rain, which is under half of what June drops on the same ground.
88.2°F HIGHS · 5.3 WET DAYS · 3.66 INCHES · SUNSET 8:11 P.M.
Go for: morning swims before the heat lands, long evenings in DeLand, and a rain total less than half of June’s on the same normals.
Think twice before: planning all-day outdoor walking, because 88.2°F afternoons with Florida humidity push the effort to sunrise and sundown.
Air normals: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, station USW00012841 · Daylight: sunrise-sunset.org · full sources at the end
On this page
- May weather at De Leon Springs88.2°F highs, 3.66 inches, 5.3 wet days
- How hot it gets from morning to afternoonA 19.5°F spread between low and high
- Crowds, booking and what we could not priceWhere May sits on the calendar
- Things to do at the spring in MayThe state park, the sugar mill, Blue Spring
- A two-day plan built around the heatHour by hour, to an 8:11 p.m. sunset
- April, May or June?How the three months compare on rain and heat
- Should I book May at all?Our verdict, for swimmers and for walkers
Two nights is the usual shape of a May visit, and in a small town the Saturday rooms go before the Wednesday ones. Budget for a car, a state-park entry and one long lunch, then check what a Florida trip costs and where to stay for the wider picture. Families juggling swim time and nap time will find the heat math in Florida with kids useful before they book.
De Leon Springs weather in May: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | May |
|---|---|
| Average high | 88.2°F |
| Average low | 68.7°F |
| Precipitation | 3.66 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 5.3 |
| Days with 1 in or more | 1.3 |
| Daylight, May 15 | 13 h 39 min |
| Sunrise / sunset, May 15 | 6:32 a.m. / 8:11 p.m. |
The air figures are NOAA NCEI monthly normals for 1991-2020, station USW00012841. That thermometer stands at Orlando Executive, not beside the spring, and the same record also serves Blue Spring, about 15 km away (roughly 9 miles). Read every figure here as the DeLand-area norm rather than a reading taken over the water. An official station still beats a grid-cell reanalysis, which can miss a nighttime minimum by several degrees, but it measures its own patch of ground.
Spread out, 3.66 inches is friendlier than it looks. In an average May, 5.3 days record at least 0.10 inch, so measurable rain turns up about one day in six and the other five stay dry. Florida’s wet season opens this month, as our statewide calendar lays out, and the water usually arrives as an afternoon buildup rather than a gray morning. Swim early and you will rarely lose the swim.
Between the average low and the average high sits a spread of 19.5°F, which is the whole packing brief. A long-sleeve sun shirt covers the 6:30 a.m. start and the shaded midday both, sandals beat sneakers by mid-afternoon, and a dry change of clothes matters more than a jacket. Sunscreen and a hat do more work here in May than any layer you own.
Light is the month’s quiet gift. On May 15 the sun rises at 6:32 a.m. and sets at 8:11 p.m. local time, giving 13 hours 39 minutes of daylight, so dinner in DeLand still ends in daylight and there is time for a second walk afterward. Those times come from sunrise-sunset.org, converted from UTC.
How warm is De Leon Springs in May?
Warm, with a real night-and-day difference. The average high reaches 88.2°F and the average low drops to 68.7°F, a 19.5°F swing across a single day. Mornings begin in the high 60s and climb fast, the peak lands in mid-afternoon, and the temperature only lets go once the sun is low, which in mid-May means after eight o’clock.
In practice you dress twice. At 7 a.m. a shirt and shorts are plenty, and the shade near the water feels almost cool. By 2 p.m. you want to be in the spring, under trees, or in a car with the air conditioning running. Water shoes earn their place on limestone, and a refilled bottle per person per half day is the baseline in this heat.
Nothing in the NOAA normals we read counts a freezing night in May here, and an average low of 68.7°F leaves no room for one. The figure we could not get is the water: we found no measured temperature for the spring run, so we publish none. Ask the park before you decide whether your children will last an hour in it or ten minutes.
How busy is De Leon Springs in May? Crowds, prices and the demand peak
May lands between two waves. The spring-break rush that fills Florida’s beach towns in March has gone, and the school summer has not started, so the pressure on a spring park falls on weekends rather than on whole weeks. We found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate data for this corner of Volusia County, so we crown no month cheap and no month expensive.
Booking behaves accordingly. Lock the Saturday night first and let the weekday nights follow, because a small town has few beds and the weekend takes them. Three or four weeks out for a May weekend is our editorial call rather than a measured lead time, and a Tuesday visit usually needs nothing more than a morning’s notice.
On taxes, we would rather say what we know. We could not verify the county lodging-tax rate, so no percentage appears here, and the nightly rate you are quoted online may or may not already carry it. Read the final screen before you confirm, and treat the fee line as part of the room price.
The one place where spending more genuinely changes a May trip is proximity. A room within a few minutes of the gate lets you arrive when the park opens, swim while the air is still in the 70s, and be out before the 88.2°F peak. We could not verify whether the park closes its gate once the lot is full, so ask that question when you book.
Things to do in De Leon Springs in May
May buys you summer water with spring rainfall: 88.2°F air, 3.66 inches over the month, and evening light to 8:11 p.m. June offers the same warmth and 8.17 inches to go with it. One thing May will not give you is manatees packed into a spring, since they gather in warm spring water during winter cold, and our manatee guide has that season.
The anchor is De Leon Springs State Park, with its swimming area, its run out toward the marsh, and the Old Spanish Sugar Mill restaurant inside the gate, where the griddle is built into the table and you pour your own pancakes. Next door, Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge opens dikes and marsh to walkers and birders. Blue Spring State Park is about 9 miles south, and DeLand supplies the lunch and the bookshops. We could not verify current fees, hours or the restaurant’s May schedule, so check each one before you drive.
The month’s effect on these places is mostly in the air above them. Average highs climb 5.0°F between April and May, from 83.2°F to 88.2°F, while a Florida spring run holds close to the same temperature all year. That growing gap is what makes the first step in feel colder in May than it did four weeks earlier, and what makes the refuge dikes a sunrise errand rather than a midday one.
As for what costs nothing: the daylight. May 15 hands you 13 hours 39 minutes of it, which is enough for a swim, a drive, a town, and a walk after dinner on the same day. Entry fees we could not confirm, so plan for each site to charge until the park’s own page tells you otherwise.
De Leon Springs in May: a two-day itinerary
Day one starts at the gate when it opens, with the air still near 70°F. Swim first, eat at the sugar mill after, and walk the short trails before 11 a.m. Give the middle of the day to DeLand, where lunch and shade cost less energy than a boardwalk does at 88.2°F. Return to the water around 5 p.m., then let the 8:11 p.m. sunset set your dinner time rather than the other way around.
Day two goes south to Blue Spring for the morning boardwalk, with Lake Woodruff as the alternative for anyone who prefers birds to crowds. If the sky stacks up after lunch, which happens on roughly one May day in six, move indoors in DeLand and keep the afternoon swim as the reward once the cell passes. Rain in this month tends to be brief and localized rather than a lost day.
De Leon Springs in May vs April and June
| Measure | April | May | June |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 83.2°F | 88.2°F | 90.7°F |
| Average low | 62.8°F | 68.7°F | 73.4°F |
| Precipitation | 2.70 in | 3.66 in | 8.17 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 3.9 | 5.3 | 11.8 |
Read across and the shape is obvious. April is 5.0°F cooler by day and 5.9°F cooler by night than May, with 2.70 inches of rain over 3.9 wet days. May adds heat and about one extra wet day. June adds only 2.5°F to the afternoon but more than doubles May’s rainfall, at 8.17 inches over 11.8 wet days. All four rows come from the same NOAA station and the same 1991-2020 period.
Shift four weeks earlier and you gain cooler nights, drier afternoons and the easiest walking of the spring, which our April page spells out in full. You lose the long evening and some of the contrast that makes the spring water feel dramatic. Shift four weeks later and you keep the warmth but accept rain on roughly two days in five, which changes how you plan every afternoon.
Is May a good time to visit De Leon Springs?
For swimmers, yes, and firmly so. If your trip is built around getting into cool water on a hot day and eating pancakes afterward, May delivers it with 88.2°F afternoons and only 5.3 wet days. For anyone planning long daytime hikes, birding sessions at noon, or a trip with someone who wilts in humidity, the answer is no unless you are willing to start at 6:30 a.m.
If that describes you, take April instead. Highs of 83.2°F, lows of 62.8°F and 2.70 inches of rain across 3.9 days give you full days outdoors rather than split ones, and the refuge dikes stay walkable well past breakfast. The tradeoff is an earlier sunset and a cooler first step into the spring.
What May alone puts on the table is the combination: near-summer air, under half of June’s rainfall, and light running to 8:11 p.m. on the fifteenth.
The last word
Book the room closest to the gate, set the alarm for the swim rather than the breakfast, and let DeLand absorb the hottest three hours. One figure worth carrying: 1.3 days in an average May drop an inch of rain or more, so a proper soaker is likely somewhere inside a week’s stay, and a flexible afternoon beats a fixed one. The spring will be exactly as cold the next morning.
Sources & data for this guide
- May air normals (88.2°F high, 68.7°F low, 3.66 in) · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00012841 · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Rain-day counts (5.3 days at 0.10 in or more, 1.3 days at 1 in or more) · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, same station · checked Sep 24, 2026
- April and June normals used in the comparison table · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, same station and period, not estimates · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight, sunrise and sunset for May 15 (13 h 39 min, 6:32 a.m., 8:11 p.m. local) · sunrise-sunset.org, converted from UTC · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Station caveat: the gauge sits at Orlando Executive and also serves Blue Spring, about 15 km away, so the figures are DeLand-area norms rather than readings at the spring
- We found no measured water temperature for the spring run, so we give none
- We could not verify the county lodging-tax rate, park entry fees, opening hours or the sugar mill restaurant’s May schedule · confirm with the operators when you book
- We found no occupancy or room-rate series for the area, so we rank no month by price