FLORIDA · MADISON BLUE SPRING · MAY
May is the month the air pulls away from the water at Madison Blue Spring. The nearest official thermometer puts the normal May afternoon at 86.4°F and the normal night at 60.3°F. The spring itself read 73.2°F (22.9°C) the last time the USGS gauge was checked, and it reads close to that in every month of the year. Thirteen degrees separate the two, and that gap is what moves between April and June.
What May takes away is margin on the calendar. Rain averages 2.84 inches over 4.6 wet days, against 7.08 inches and 8.4 wet days in June. Afternoons run 6.8 degrees warmer than April’s 79.6°F, so the walk back to the car costs less. If the date can still move, our April guide makes the case for the cooler month, and the statewide calendar handles the rest of the year.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · MAY
May puts hot air over water that never changes: 86.4°F afternoons above a spring reading 73.2°F, with rain still at 2.84 inches before June more than doubles it.
NOAA 1991-2020 NORMALS · AIR MEASURED 27 MILES AWAY · NO DESIGNATED SWIM AREA IN THE STATE INVENTORY
Go for: a 13.2-degree gap between an 86.4°F afternoon and 73.2°F water, 13 hours 45 minutes of daylight, and a rain month that still averages under three inches.
Think twice before: planning a swim day around marked facilities. Florida’s 2024 recreational-facilities inventory records no designated swimming area at this park, and no canoe, kayak or tube launch either.
Air: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 · Water: USGS gauge 02319302 · Facilities: Florida DEP 2024 inventory
On this page
- Madison Blue Spring weather in May86.4°F days, 2.84 inches, 4.6 wet days
- How warm it gets in MayHighs of 86.4°F over lows of 60.3°F
- Crowds and prices in MayThe wet season opens, and no fee we could confirm
- Things to do in MayThe spring run at 73.2°F, and what the park lacks
- A two-day plan built on May daylightFrom a 6:36 a.m. sunrise to an 8:21 p.m. sunset
- May, April or June?Rain goes from 2.84 to 7.08 inches
- Is May a good month to go?Yes for hot air over cool water, no for marked facilities
Florida law carries a label worth knowing before any spring trip. Statute 373.802(5) defines an Outstanding Florida Spring as every historic first-magnitude spring the Florida Geological Survey determines, plus six named by hand in the text. Paperwork aside, the physical fact under a May visit is constancy: the air over this corner of Madison County swings 26 degrees between dawn and mid-afternoon, and the water does not swing at all.
Madison Blue Spring weather in May: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | May normal |
|---|---|
| Average high | 86.4°F |
| Average low | 60.3°F |
| Day-to-night spread | 26.1°F |
| Precipitation | 2.84 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 4.6 |
| Days with 1 in or more | 0.5 |
| Daylight, May 15 | 13 h 45 min · 6:36 a.m. to 8:21 p.m. EDT |
| Spring water when last read | 73.2°F |
Every figure here comes from NOAA NCEI’s 1991-2020 monthly normals for station USW00093845, Valdosta Regional Airport in Georgia, about 27 miles from the spring. That is a real thermometer with a station identifier, not a model grid cell, and the distance is the price of having one at all. May normals: a high of 86.4°F, a low of 60.3°F, 2.84 inches of precipitation. All of it describes the air. None of it describes the water.
An average May collects at least a tenth of an inch on 4.6 days. Call it measurable rain roughly one day in six, with five dry days for every wet one. The heavier end is rarer than people expect: 0.5 days per May reach an inch or more, so a true soaking lands about every other year. Losing a whole day to weather is unlikely in May. Losing an afternoon is not.
The 26.1 degrees between the normal low and the normal high do the packing for you. A 60.3°F dawn wants a fleece and long pants in the car, and an 86.4°F mid-afternoon wants shade, a hat and more water than you brought. Towels dry slowly in May humidity, so bring two. Anything you plan to wear home should not be the thing you swam in.
On May 15 the sun rises at 6:36 a.m. EDT and sets at 8:21 p.m. EDT, giving 13 hours 45 minutes of daylight. That is generous enough to drive in, spend six hours at the water and drive out with light left. The heat and the light do not peak together: the light holds until eight, the worst of the 86.4°F afternoon is over by six.
How warm is Madison Blue Spring in May?
Air and water answer this question differently. The normal May high is 86.4°F, the normal low 60.3°F, a spread of 26.1 degrees inside a single day. The USGS gauge on the spring, station 02319302, read 73.2°F (22.9°C) on September 11, 2026. That is one instantaneous measurement rather than an average of daily maxima, so read it as the water’s habit and not as a ceiling or a floor.
In practice you dress twice. At 7 a.m. the air is in the low 60s and the 73.2°F water feels warm going in, which is why early swimmers look comfortable and everyone else is in a hoodie. By three in the afternoon the same water takes your breath for a few seconds, then feels like the best decision of the trip. The hour after you get out is the one that needs a dry shirt.
Freezing nights are not a May problem, and we cannot count them for you. Our normals are monthly means rather than daily extremes, so no frost tally exists in our sources. What we can say is the margin: a mean low of 60.3°F sits 28 degrees above freezing, and even April, the colder neighbor, averages 52.8°F at night.
How busy is Madison Blue Spring in May? Crowds, prices and the demand peak
May opens Florida’s wet season, as our month-by-month verdict sets out, and the rain record follows the pattern: 2.84 inches this month, 7.08 inches next. On money, we have nothing to report. We found no occupancy series and no room-rate series for this corner of Madison County, so we crown no month cheap and no month expensive.
Booking, then, is a question of daylight rather than scarcity. With sunrise at 6:36 a.m. and sunset at 8:21 p.m., a spring day works as a car trip with no night reserved at all. If your route needs beds, our Florida lodging guide sorts the regions. We could not verify campsite or cabin availability here, so we give no booking window in weeks and would rather say that than guess one.
We could not verify a lodging-tax rate for Madison County either, so no percentage appears. A Florida room bill is usually state sales tax plus a county tourist-development levy set county by county, and the total is the only number that matters to you. Ask the property to quote it taxes in, before the card goes down. Our trip-cost guide covers how those layers stack statewide.
Spend on the car and spend nothing on the day. Afternoons average 86.4°F, the water sits near 73.2°F, and the whole comfort of May lives in the hour after you climb out and the drive home that follows. A rental with cold air and a cooler with real ice change more about this month than any upgrade we could price. Rentals, tolls and true drive times are in our getting-around guide.
Things to do in Madison Blue Spring in May
May does one thing April cannot. An 86.4°F afternoon sits 13.2 degrees above the 73.2°F the gauge read, where April’s 79.6°F leaves a gap of only 6.4 degrees. Cool water is a relief in the first case and a commitment in the second. Add 13 hours 45 minutes of daylight and the day holds two long sessions at the water with a shaded gap between them.
Madison Blue Spring State Park is the address, and the state’s own paperwork is blunt about what it holds. The Florida DEP recreational-facilities inventory for 2024 records no designated swimming area at this park, and no canoe, kayak or tube launch. Plan around that: nothing is marked, nothing is rented on site, and the numbers that describe the place are the water’s, not the equipment’s.
The month changes the air, never the spring. Nights over this water climb from 52.8°F in April to 60.3°F in May to 67.9°F in June while the gauge keeps reading near 73.2°F. Inside a single May day the same water does two different jobs: warm at a 60.3°F dawn, sharp at an 86.4°F mid-afternoon. Six hours apart, one temperature, two experiences.
On what it costs to walk in, we come up empty. We could not verify an entrance fee, an opening hour or a manatee count here: floridastateparks.org answers our automated reads with a 403, and the state’s manatee pages render only in a browser. Call the park before you set the alarm, and treat any fee quoted elsewhere as another park’s number. Manatee season and the springs that host it are covered in our manatee guide.
Madison Blue Spring in May: a two-day itinerary
Day one runs on the light. Sunrise is 6:36 a.m. EDT on May 15, so leaving at first light puts you at the water by eight with the air still in the 60s and the 73.2°F spring feeling warm. Take the middle of the day out of the sun entirely, because the 86.4°F normal high arrives in mid-afternoon. Back in the water around five, dry by seven, and the drive out still has light until 8:21 p.m.
Day two takes the weather’s call. With 4.6 wet days in an average May, the odds of losing an afternoon are real but modest, and wet-season rain here arrives as afternoon thunderstorms rather than all-day gray, as our Florida orientation explains. Shift the water hours to the morning and put the drive inside the storm window. If the sky holds, use the second morning to go slower than the first.
Madison Blue Spring in May vs April and June
| Measure | April | May | June |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 79.6°F | 86.4°F | 90.1°F |
| Average low | 52.8°F | 60.3°F | 67.9°F |
| Precipitation | 3.66 in | 2.84 in | 7.08 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 4.5 | 4.6 | 8.4 |
| Spring water | No seasonal change | 73.2°F at the gauge | No seasonal change |
All three months share one water temperature and nothing else. April is 6.8 degrees cooler by day and 7.5 degrees cooler by night than May, and it is the wetter of the two on the total, 3.66 inches against 2.84. June brings the heat, 90.1°F by day and 67.9°F at night, along with 7.08 inches of rain across 8.4 wet days. April and May are near twins on wet-day count, 4.5 against 4.6. June is where the calendar breaks.
Shifting four weeks back gains you quieter, milder driving and a 79.6°F afternoon, and it costs you the sensation the spring is famous for: at that air temperature the water is merely cold. Shifting four weeks forward gains 3.7 degrees of afternoon heat and loses almost four extra wet days, plus 4.24 inches of additional rain. May keeps the June feeling without the June sky.
Is May a good time to visit Madison Blue Spring?
Yes, for anyone who wants hot air over cold water and a long day to spend in both. An 86.4°F afternoon, 13 hours 45 minutes of light and under three inches of rain across the month is close to the best arrangement this site offers. No, for visitors who need marked facilities: the state inventory lists no designated swim area and no paddle launch, and 86.4°F with Florida humidity is genuinely hot for anyone waiting on shore.
If that is a no, take April rather than June. April runs 79.6°F by day with the same 4.5 wet days, and the trade is honest: milder air, and water that feels colder because the air above it is cooler. Our April page works the numbers for that month, and know before you go handles the statewide practicalities.
No other month puts a 13.2-degree gap between the afternoon air and a spring that reads 73.2°F while rain still averages 2.84 inches.
The last word
The decision that matters in May is the hour, not the date: park by eight, sit out the middle of the day, and go back in at five. One more number for the drive down. The vent pushes 72 cubic feet per second out of the ground, and that volume replaces the water faster than it can cloud, in May, in February and on the morning after a storm. Call the park for its hours before you set the alarm, because we could not.
Sources & data for this guide
- May, April and June normals, rain days and heavy-rain days · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00093845, Valdosta Regional Airport, GA, about 27 miles from the spring · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight, sunrise and sunset for May 15 · sunrise-sunset.org, converted from UTC to EDT · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Water temperature 73.2°F (22.9°C) and discharge of 72 cubic feet per second, single instantaneous readings · USGS National Water Information System, station 02319302 · checked Sep 24, 2026
- No designated swimming area, no canoe, kayak or tube launch recorded at this park · Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Recreational Facilities Inventory, 2024 annual report · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Definition of an Outstanding Florida Spring · Florida Statutes 373.802(5) · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Entrance fee, opening hours and manatee counts: we could not verify them. floridastateparks.org returns a 403 to our automated reads, and the state’s manatee pages render in a browser only · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Lodging tax and occupancy: we found no county rate and no monthly series, so this guide gives no percentage and ranks no month by price.
To plan your stay
- Madison Blue Spring: When to Go, Month by Month Highs, Rain and Daylight
- Madison Blue Spring in April: Weather, Water Temperature and How It Compares to March and May
- Madison Blue Spring in June: Water Temperature, Rain Days and What the Park Lists
- Madison Blue Spring in March: Weather, Water Temperature and Rain Days