Clearwater in December: Weather, Sea Temperature and Holiday Crowds

CLEARWATER · DECEMBER · 27.98° N

Clearwater in December runs on a 72.8°F afternoon and a 65.5°F Gulf. That pairing is warm enough for a full day outdoors and cool enough that the water gets a debate before anyone walks into it. The holiday weeks fill the beachfront hotels and the first three weeks do not, and those two Decembers behave differently on booking, parking and pace.

Nights drop to 56.0°F and the sun is gone by 5:39 pm, so the usable day is short. Four nights and a rental car for at least one of them covers the three island beaches near town without a rushed morning, and leaves room for the one wet day a December week usually carries.

On this page

• Clearwater weather in DecemberHighs of 72.8°F, lows of 56.0°F, 3.5 wet days
• Sea temperature in December65.5°F, and what that is like to swim in
• How busy Clearwater gets over the holidaysThe calendar split and the 12% lodging tax
• Things to do in DecemberHoneymoon Island, Caladesi Island, Anclote Key
• A two-day plan around a 5:39 pm sunsetThe December itinerary, hour by hour
• December, November or JanuaryHow the three months compare
• Is December a good time to visit Clearwater?Who should come, and who should shift a month

The normals below are December’s own. Where to sleep, what a week costs and which airport to fly into sit in the wider guides: where to stay, trip cost and flights. The two neighboring months have their own pages, November and January.

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

These figures come from one thermometer, not a grid cell: NOAA’s 1991-2020 monthly normals for station USW00012873, St. Petersburg International Airport. December averages a high of 72.8°F, a low of 56.0°F and 2.94 inches of rain. One caveat travels with every figure here. The gauge sits at PIE, between St. Petersburg and Clearwater and on the bay side rather than the Gulf, and Clearwater Beach gets a sea breeze the airport never feels, so the gap falls on the afternoon maximum and barely touches the overnight low.

Those 2.94 inches arrive on very few days. The normals count 3.5 days at 0.10 inch or more, roughly one day in nine, and 0.7 day at an inch or more, so a real soaking is not an annual fixture. Over a one-week stay, budget one wet day and one backup plan rather than a rearranged itinerary. We have no hourly rain breakdown for the station, which means the daily total is the fact and the timing of it is not.

The spread between 72.8°F and 56.0°F is 16.8°F, and you feel all of it on open sand after sunset. Pack for two climates in one day: shorts and a long-sleeve layer, plus a windbreaker for the evening. Freezing is close to theoretical at 0.1 nights per December at 32°F or below, about one December in ten with a single such night, and that figure too belongs to the airport gauge rather than the beach.

December 15 gives 10 hours 25 minutes of light, sunrise at 7:14 am and sunset at 5:39 pm local time. That clock is the real constraint on the trip: a ferry crossing, a trail and a beach afternoon do not all fit after a late breakfast. Start outdoor plans by 9 am and treat 4 pm as the last useful hour of warmth.

Can you swim in Clearwater in December? Sea temperature and what it feels like

The Gulf off Clearwater averages 65.5°F in December in the Open-Meteo marine record, and that number is a 2015-2024 average of daily maxima, not a 24-hour mean. Read it as a shade warmer than the water you meet at 8 am. It also comes from a different source than the air normals above, a modeled marine series rather than a station thermometer, so the two should not be quoted as one dataset.

At 65.5°F you can swim, and people do. Getting out into a 72.8°F afternoon is colder than getting in, which is the part nobody plans for. Short swims work in nothing but a swimsuit, anything past ten minutes goes better in a rash guard or a thin wetsuit, and children give up sooner than adults. November’s 73.5°F is a swimming sea; December’s is a dip with a towel waiting.

Wind and swell we cannot give you. No December wind speed or wave height for this stretch of the Gulf could be read, and no figure is invented here to fill the hole. Put the swim in the warmest part of the afternoon, once the air has climbed toward its 72.8°F average, and check a forecast the morning of rather than trusting a monthly mean.

How busy is Clearwater in December? Holiday crowds, booking ahead and the lodging tax

December splits in two on the calendar. The first three weeks run on ordinary winter demand, the last ten days run on the school break and New Year. We carry no monthly occupancy series and no room-rate series for Pinellas County, so you will find no claim here about the cheapest week of the year. What is certain is the shape of the calendar, and it is the same shape every December.

Book the Christmas-to-New-Year nights first and keep the rest of the month flexible. On flights, the local airport sets expectations by its own scale: PIE boarded 1,228,048 passengers in calendar year 2024, which the FAA classes a small hub, so nonstop choice is limited and December seats go early. Compare gateways before you commit, as our flights guide lays out.

Pinellas County levies a 6.0% transient rental tax on every booked night, collected alongside the 6% state sales tax. That is 12% on top of the nightly rate you were quoted, per the Florida Department of Revenue’s form DR-15TDT, revision 03/25. A resort fee is a separate animal: the property sets it, it varies by hotel, and it is not a tax.

The one line worth paying up for this month is walking distance to sand. With the light gone at 5:39 pm, an afternoon spent moving the car is an afternoon spent. A beach-side room instead of a cheaper inland one buys back that hour, and it changes the day rather than the invoice. Whether you need a car at all for the rest of the trip is settled in getting around Florida.

Things to do in Clearwater in December: Honeymoon Island, Caladesi and Anclote Key

Of these three winter months, December is the last that still sends you into the water at all: 65.5°F against January’s 61.7°F. It is also the month when a full outdoor day costs nothing in heat management. Trail in the morning, sand in the afternoon, one pair of clothes for both, which is not how a Clearwater August works.

Honeymoon Island State Park is the drive-to one. The state counts 4 miles of beach, 3.4 miles of hiking trail, one designated swimming area and 2,021 parking spaces, the largest parking count of any Florida state park in the 2024 inventory. Caladesi Island, with 3 miles of beach and 2.5 miles of trail, has no parking space counted at all: you arrive by ferry or your own boat. Anclote Key Preserve adds 6.7 miles of beach on the same terms. Entrance fees and opening hours could not be read, so check them before you drive.

Those beach mileages do not move with the season. The light does. Sunset at 5:39 pm turns a Caladesi day into one crossing out and one back, with the island’s 3 miles to yourself in between rather than three separate trips ashore. On Honeymoon Island the same clock is gentler, because the car waits in the lot and the drive home starts whenever you are finished.

What costs nothing in December is the stretch of day that summer visitors skip: noon to sunset outdoors, with no shade strategy required. On the paid side, we could not read the parks’ current fees or hours from their own pages in September 2026, so no park price appears here, free or otherwise. The only charge we can put a number on is the 12% that lands on your room.

Clearwater in December: a two-day itinerary

Day one goes to Honeymoon Island. Out the door by 8 am with the air still near its 56.0°F low, walking the 3.4 miles of trail while walking is the warmest thing you are doing. By 11 the high is climbing, so trade trail for the designated swimming area and test the 65.5°F water. Lunch, then the 4 miles of beach through the afternoon, then the boardwalk, 1,671 feet of it, for the 5:39 pm sunset. You are back at the room by 6:30 with the evening still ahead.

Day two belongs to Caladesi, and it runs on the ferry timetable rather than yours: one crossing out, one back, 3 miles of beach and 2.5 miles of trail in between. Confirm the crossing before you build the day around it, since schedules and fares could not be verified. If the weather turns, drop the island rather than shortening it. December’s rain concentrates into 3.5 days across the month, so the wet day is a day to spend inland, and our Florida things-to-do guide holds the indoor list.

Clearwater in December vs November and January

November runs 4.4°F warmer by day, 77.2°F against 72.8°F, and far drier at 1.64 inches on 2.5 wet days against December’s 2.94 inches on 3.5. January goes the other way: 70.6°F days, 52.5°F nights, 2.62 inches and 4.5 wet days, the most frequent rain of the three. The marine series sorts the trio cleanly, 73.5°F in November, 65.5°F in December, 61.7°F in January, all three measured as daily maxima over 2015-2024.

Shift four weeks earlier and you gain 8.0°F of sea and one dry day in the month, and you lose the school break that makes the trip possible for a family. Shift four weeks later and the beaches are the same while the swim is finished: January’s water is a wade at 61.7°F and its nights run 3.5°F cooler than December’s. The twelve-month picture lives in the best time to visit Florida.

Is December a good time to visit Clearwater?

Yes for anyone whose Clearwater is a beach to walk, a trail to hike and a boat ride to an island: 3.5 wet days and a 72.8°F afternoon leave the outdoor plan standing. No if the vacation is built on swimming, because 65.5°F water is a short dip whatever your tolerance. And no if your dates are the last ten days of the month and the budget is fixed, since that week carries school-holiday demand plus 12% tax on whatever rate you accept.

If the water is the point, move to November: 73.5°F sea, 77.2°F days and 1.64 inches of rain, the warmest and driest of the three months in the table above. The price of that choice is the school calendar, which is why so many families take the colder water instead. The November page carries that month’s numbers in full.

Among these three months, December is the only one that lays a two-week holiday over water still above 65°F and 10 hours 25 minutes of usable light.

The last word

Decide the dates before the hotel, because the first three weeks and the holiday week are two different Decembers and only one of them needs booking months out. Whichever you take, keep one afternoon for Anclote Key, 6.7 miles of beach and 1,408 feet of boardwalk reachable only by boat, and be back on the water before the 5:39 pm sunset.

Sources & data for this guide

• December highs, lows, precipitation, wet days and freezing nights · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00012873 · checked Sep 13, 2026
• Station identity and location (St. Petersburg International Airport, bay side, between St. Petersburg and Clearwater) · NOAA NCEI Search service · checked Sep 13, 2026
• November and January normals used in the comparison table · same NOAA station and period · checked Sep 13, 2026
• Sea surface 65.5°F (Dec), 73.5°F (Nov), 61.7°F (Jan), averages of daily maxima 2015-2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 13, 2026
• Daylight, sunrise 7:14 am and sunset 5:39 pm on December 15 · sunrise-sunset.org, converted from UTC · checked Sep 13, 2026
• Beach mileage, trails, boardwalks and parking counts at Honeymoon Island, Caladesi Island and Anclote Key · Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Recreational Facilities Inventory, 2024 annual report · checked Sep 13, 2026
• Transient rental tax 6.0% plus 6% state sales tax · Florida Department of Revenue, form DR-15TDT, revision 03/25 · checked Sep 13, 2026
• PIE passenger boardings, 1,228,048 in CY2024, small hub · Federal Aviation Administration · checked Sep 13, 2026
• Park entrance fees, opening hours, ferry fares and local bus fares could not be read on Sep 11, 2026: the operators’ pages returned errors or rendered only in a browser. No amount is invented here · check each operator before you travel.