GINNIE SPRINGS · DECEMBER · 72.7°F WATER
The spring does not keep a calendar. The USGS gauge at Ginnie Springs read 72.7°F (22.6°C) on September 11, 2026, and it reads close to that on a July Saturday and a December Tuesday alike. What December changes is everything above the surface: the air, the length of the light, and the walk from the ladder back to the towel.
December’s own figures are narrow and specific: an average high of 69.3°F, an average low of 45.2°F, 2.88 inches of rain across the month, and 10 hours 17 minutes of daylight on the 15th. They come from a real thermometer at Gainesville Regional Airport, roughly 48 miles from the spring. Whether that adds up to your kind of swim depends almost entirely on what you plan to wear.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · GINNIE SPRINGS · DECEMBER
December gives you a spring that reads warmer than the average afternoon air, at the price of a 45.2°F dawn and a day and a half more rain than November.
AVG HIGH 69.3°F · AVG LOW 45.2°F · SPRING 72.7°F · 4.5 WET DAYS
Go for: swimming and diving in 72.7°F water while the air peaks at 69.3°F, and a sunrise at 7:17 a.m. that nobody has to set an alarm for.
Think twice before: building a day around lying in the sun. An average December drops 3.7 nights to 32°F or below and brings 0.10 inch of rain or more on 4.5 days.
Air: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, Gainesville Regional AP · Water: USGS gauge 02322400 · full sources at the end
On this page
- Ginnie Springs weather in December69.3°F highs, 2.88 inches, 4.5 wet days
- How cold the mornings getA 45.2°F low and 3.7 freeze nights
- Crowds, fees and what we could verifyThe school break, and the prices we will not guess
- Things to do at the spring in DecemberDiving at Ginnie and Peacock Springs
- A two-day December planTwo days inside 10 hours 17 minutes of light
- December vs November and January74.7°F, 69.3°F and 67.1°F side by side
- Is December a good month to go?Yes with neoprene, no with a tube
Anything not dated by the month belongs elsewhere. The spring itself and how you reach it live on our Ginnie Springs guide, the statewide twelve-month case sits on the best-time page, and the month after this one has its own numbers.
Ginnie Springs weather in December: average highs, lows and rain days
| December normal | Value |
|---|---|
| Average high | 69.3°F |
| Average low | 45.2°F |
| Precipitation | 2.88 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 4.5 |
| Days with 1 in or more | 0.9 |
| Nights at 32°F or below | 3.7 |
| Daylight on Dec 15 | 10h 17m |
Every figure here comes from NOAA’s NCEI monthly normals for 1991 to 2020, station USW00012816, the thermometer at Gainesville Regional Airport, about 78 km (48 miles) from the spring. That is a real instrument rather than a reanalysis grid cell, and it is the best air record within reach of this stretch of north Florida. It also measures air over an airport apron, not air over a spring run under trees, so read 69.3°F as the regional afternoon rather than a reading at the water’s edge.
Measurable rain lands on 4.5 December days, roughly one day in seven at 0.10 inch or more. Only 0.9 day in an average December brings a full inch, so most years hand you a single real soaking and a handful of gray drizzles. The month totals 2.88 inches. A wet day costs less at a spring than at a beach: you were getting in the water regardless, and the water is warmer than the parking lot.
Between the 45.2°F low and the 69.3°F high sits 24.1°F of daily swing, and the whole swing lands in your bag. A fleece and long pants for the first two hours, shorts by early afternoon, and a second dry towel that nobody touches until the last exit. Add a neoprene top if you intend more than a dip, because it decides how long you stay in rather than how comfortable you look.
December 15 runs 10 hours 17 minutes of daylight, sunrise at 7:17 a.m. and sunset at 5:34 p.m. local time. Under a canopy that means usable light from roughly eight to five, with the last hour going flat early where the trees close over the water. Line up the final swim for three o’clock and the drive out for dusk.
How warm is Ginnie Springs in December?
The month averages a 69.3°F high and a 45.2°F low, 24.1°F apart. The spring sits above both of them: USGS station 02322400 read 72.7°F (22.6°C) on September 11, 2026. That is a single instantaneous reading rather than a monthly mean, and we found no December series for the gauge. What it does show, day after day, is a figure that barely moves. A spring has no season. The air above it does.
So a December day runs backward from a July one. You arrive cold, in a fleece, on grass that may still be stiff, and the warmest thing on the property is the water. Long sleeves and closed shoes until mid-morning, shorts after that, with the changeover somewhere around eleven when the air finally catches up. The cold part of a December swim comes after the swim, in the walk from the ladder to the towel.
Freezing nights are a genuine part of the month: 3.7 nights in an average December fall to 32°F or below at the Gainesville station. They are dawn temperatures, gone by mid-morning, and they matter most to anyone sleeping outside rather than driving in. Scraping a windshield at seven and getting into 72.7°F water at eleven belong to the same ordinary December day here.
How busy is Ginnie Springs in December? Crowds, prices and the demand peak
December falls inside Florida’s dry season, November through April, which our twelve-month view lays out state by state. Where the month sits on price we will not pretend to know: we found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate series for this corner of north Florida, so we crown no month cheap and no month expensive. What the calendar does carry is the winter school break in the last two weeks.
We also cannot give you a booking lead time as a number, because no reservation window appears in our sources. The usable version is narrower. If one date has to be fixed early, make it a weekend in the second half of the month, when the break puts every Florida family on the road at once. Midweek dates in the first two weeks are the ones that hold longest, and the operator’s own page settles both.
We could not verify a lodging-tax rate for the county, so we give no percentage and no all-in nightly figure. Ask for the total with taxes at the moment you book, and compare that number rather than the headline rate. For the statewide picture on what a Florida week absorbs, our trip-cost guide does the arithmetic.
If extra money goes anywhere this month, send it to thermal protection. The water holds at 72.7°F while the average low is 45.2°F, and that gap decides whether the visit is eight minutes long or eighty. A rented wetsuit, a hood, a thermos in the car: that is the entire December upgrade list. Everything else money buys here, it buys identically in June.
Things to do in Ginnie Springs in December
December does one thing no summer month manages: it puts the spring above the air. The afternoon tops out at 69.3°F on average while the gauge reads 72.7°F, so the water becomes the warm place on the property. Diving is where that reverses the whole day, since getting under stops being relief from heat and starts being the reason you are not shivering.
Ginnie Springs carries its own USGS gauge, station 02322400, and 72.7°F is the number it produced. Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection names Ginnie Springs, alongside Peacock Springs, among the most popular and interesting springs diving destinations in the state. Peacock sits under the same official heading and makes the obvious second stop for anyone who has already made the drive north.
The gauge does not move from month to month. The air does, and by December it has shed 5.4°F off November’s 74.7°F average high, with the low down at 45.2°F. That leaves 27.5°F between the coldest part of the morning and the surface of the water. In June the swim is the cool-off. In December it is the warm-up, and the towel does the real work.
We cannot point you to anything free, because we could not verify any fee at all: floridastateparks.org answers automated reads with a 403, and our sources carry no entrance price, no opening hour and no manatee count for December. A price found at another spring does not transfer here. Call the operator before you load the car, and for winter manatees specifically, our manatee guide covers where to go instead.
Ginnie Springs in December: a two-day itinerary
Day one has 10 hours 17 minutes to spend. Sunrise is 7:17 a.m., and the air needs two of those hours before anyone changes, because a 45.2°F start makes an eight o’clock swim expensive in shivers. Get in at 10:30, when the air is climbing toward 69.3°F and the water has not budged from 72.7°F. Lunch at one, a second session at two, dry and dressed by four. Sunset is 5:34 p.m. and the tree line takes the light well before it.
Day two spends the same clock differently: one long session from eleven instead of two short ones, which leaves the afternoon for the drive home in daylight. If the weather turns, keep the scale in mind. Rain reaches 0.10 inch on 4.5 days a month and a full inch on 0.9 day, so the standard December shower is drizzle falling on people who are already wet. Cold cancels a day here more often than rain. A 32°F dawn with wind makes the walk back to the car the memorable part.
Ginnie Springs in December vs November and January
| November | December | January | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 74.7°F | 69.3°F | 67.1°F |
| Average low | 50.6°F | 45.2°F | 42.6°F |
| Precipitation | 1.79 in | 2.88 in | 3.29 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 3.0 | 4.5 | 5.2 |
| Spring water | 72.7°F | 72.7°F | 72.7°F |
November averages a 74.7°F high and a 50.6°F low, with 1.79 inches of rain over 3.0 wet days. December drops to 69.3°F and 45.2°F, with 2.88 inches over 4.5 days. January carries on down to 67.1°F and 42.6°F, with 3.29 inches over 5.2 days. Across all three, the gauge keeps reading 72.7°F. So the three months separate by 7.6°F of afternoon air and 2.2 wet days, and not at all underwater.
Shift four weeks earlier and you gain 5.4°F of afternoon air and 1.5 fewer wet days, while losing the inversion: at 74.7°F, November afternoons run warmer than the spring, and the water goes back to being the cool thing. Shift four weeks later and January charges you 0.7 more wet day, 2.2°F less afternoon warmth and a 42.6°F low for the privilege of the same swim. The January page runs those figures in full.
Is December a good time to visit Ginnie Springs?
Yes, if you came for the water. Divers, snorkelers and anyone with a wetsuit get a version of this place that summer cannot produce: 72.7°F below the surface, 69.3°F above it, and no heat to plan around. No, if your picture of a Florida spring involves a tube, a towel and a long sunlit afternoon. At 45.2°F before breakfast and 69.3°F at the peak, the month does not hand you that day.
If the second description fits, move the trip to November. Highs run 74.7°F against December’s 69.3°F, lows 50.6°F against 45.2°F, and rain falls on 3.0 days rather than 4.5. Five and a half degrees sounds trivial until it decides whether you sit on the grass afterward or head straight for the car heater. If the dates are still open across the state, our Florida best-time guide sorts all twelve months.
December is the first month of the cold season when the spring reads warmer than the average afternoon, 72.7°F against 69.3°F, and from here until spring the water stays the warm place on the property.
The last word
Settle one decision before you drive north: what you are wearing in the water, because at 69.3°F of afternoon air the swim lasts exactly as long as your neoprene allows. The rest of December looks after itself. And the spring you are lowering yourself into holds a legal title to go with its gauge reading. Florida law protects what it calls Outstanding Florida Springs, a class covering every historic first-magnitude spring as determined by the Florida Geological Survey, plus six named by hand in statute 373.802(5). Check the operator’s own page for the gate hour before you leave, since we could not.
Sources & data for this guide
- December air normals, high 69.3°F, low 45.2°F, 2.88 in · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00012816, Gainesville Regional AP, FL US, about 78 km from the spring · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Rain-day and freeze-night counts, 4.5 days at 0.10 in, 0.9 day at 1 in, 3.7 nights at 32°F or below · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, same station · checked Sep 24, 2026
- November and January normals used in the comparison · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, same station, same period as December · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight, sunrise and sunset for December 15, converted to local time · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Water temperature 72.7°F (22.6°C), a single instantaneous reading and not a monthly mean · USGS National Water Information System, station 02322400 Ginnie Springs · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Outstanding Florida Springs definition · Florida Statutes 373.802(5), leg.state.fl.us · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Ginnie and Peacock Springs named among the state’s diving destinations · Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Visit a Spring · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Admission, opening hours and manatee counts: we could not read them. floridastateparks.org returns 403 to automated reads and the FWC manatee pages render client-side, so we publish no fee, no hour and no count · checked Sep 24, 2026
To plan your stay
- Best Time to Visit Ginnie Springs: Monthly Highs, Rainfall and the Month to Skip
- Ginnie Springs in January: Water Temperature, Air Normals and Rain Days
- Ginnie Springs in November: Water Temperature, Weather Normals and Crowds
- Ginnie Springs in February: Water Temperature, Air Normals and Freeze Nights