Miami in December: 78°F Highs, 3.7 Rain Days and Peak-Season Prices

MIAMI · DECEMBER · 25.79° N

December is the month Miami stops arguing with itself. The airport gauge averages a high of 78.2°F and a low of 64.3°F, the whole month collects 2.44 inches of rain, and the Atlantic hurricane season closed on November 30. The water off the sand still reads 79.1°F. What you hand back is daylight: on December 15 the sun sets at 5:33 p.m. and the beach thins out an hour later.

The rest is arithmetic about money and company. Hotel rates sit at their annual floor from August to October and at their ceiling from February to April, and December is on the rising side of that curve, holiday weeks included. Add 12 percent in taxes on every room rate, plus a nightly resort fee on Miami Beach, and the room you priced in October is a different proposition in the last week of the year.

On this page

• Average highs, lows and rain days78.2°F highs and 3.7 wet days
• Can you swim in December?Sea at 79.1°F, and the daily-maxima caveat
• Hotel prices and the tourist taxThe 6% county tax, resort fees, booking lead
• Things to do with hours and admissionVizcaya at $20, PAMM Thursdays, Crandon parking
• A two-day plan for short daylightHour by hour to a 5:33 p.m. sunset
• December against November and JanuaryThree months of normals side by side
• Is December a good time to go?Who should move the trip to January

A geography note before the numbers, because it decides how far you travel after dark. South Beach sits on the island of Miami Beach, while Wynwood, Little Havana and Coconut Grove are mainland neighborhoods inside the City of Miami. Coral Gables is neither of those two cities, but an independent municipality of Miami-Dade County, incorporated on April 29, 1925, with its own police and planning. December changes none of that geography, and all of the commuting math (our where-to-stay guide covers the bases).

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

Those air figures come from NOAA’s NCEI monthly normals for 1991 to 2020 at station USW00012839, the gauge at Miami International Airport. The distinction is worth a sentence: this is an official station record from one fixed instrument, not a reanalysis grid cell averaged across water, runway and city. The same station and the same 30-year window supply the November and January columns further down, so the three months are genuinely comparable.

Rain shows up on 3.7 days of the month, counting days that log at least 0.10 inch. Days of an inch or more average 0.5, so a properly soaked December turns up about every second year. On the ground, a wet spell here is twenty minutes and a damp chair rather than a lost afternoon, and the 2.44-inch total is under a quarter of what the same gauge collects in June (10.51 inches).

Fourteen degrees separate the average high from the average low, and the cool end lands at breakfast and again after dinner. Pack one long-sleeve layer and something with a collar, plus a light jacket if your evening involves a boat or an open causeway crossing. A swimsuit that dries slowly is the item people regret at 6 p.m., not at noon.

Daylight on December 15 runs 10 hours 35 minutes, sunrise at 6:58 a.m. and sunset at 5:33 p.m. Eastern time. That short afternoon reorganizes a day: outdoor sights want to be finished by 4:30 p.m., which is also, conveniently, the last admission at Vizcaya. Dinner in December is a night out, not a sunset.

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

Sea surface off Miami averages 79.1°F in December in the Open-Meteo Marine record, taken as the mean of daily maxima over 2015 to 2024. Read that qualifier properly: it is the warm point of each day, averaged across ten Decembers, so it sits a shade above a true 24-hour mean. Upper seventies at three in the afternoon, a degree or two under that at seven in the morning.

At 79°F the water asks nothing of you. Adults swim without a wetsuit, children stay in until an adult insists otherwise, and an hour of snorkeling is comfortable rather than heroic. The cold in December is not in the sea but in the exit, with air sliding toward that 64.3°F low and a breeze on a wet swimsuit at dusk. Lummus Park, the free beach fronting Ocean Drive between 5th and 15th Streets, keeps lifeguards on duty and restrooms open around the clock.

December wind and swell normals for Miami Beach are not in the record we used, and rounding one up would be worse than admitting the gap. The water figure itself carries a disagreement too: published winter tables put the Atlantic here nearer 72°F, against the 79.1°F of daily maxima above, so treat anything in the seventies as the realistic range. The calendar settles the storm question outright, since the Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 and peaks on September 10.

How busy is Miami in December? Crowds, prices and the demand peak

Miami’s hotel year has a floor and a ceiling. Market data relayed by local operators puts rates lowest from August to October and highest from February to April, a trend rather than an official statistic. December lands between the two on the rising side, with the holiday period pulling the second half of the month well above the first (est.).

Practically, book earlier than you would for a fall trip. Six to eight weeks of lead time is a sensible target for a December room on Miami Beach (est.), and the last ten days of the month deserve more than that. Arrival times stretch as well: MIA sits about 12 miles from South Beach, a 20 to 45 minute drive depending on traffic, and Fort Lauderdale about 25 miles, 35 to 50 minutes on I-95.

The rate you see is not the rate you pay. Miami-Dade County levies a 6.0 percent transient rental tax, filed and paid with Florida’s 6 percent sales tax, so 12 percent lands on the room before anything else does. Miami Beach hotels then commonly add a nightly resort fee, and the published amounts scatter badly: near $25 on average in some surveys, $35 to $95 at named properties in others. Ask for the all-in nightly total in writing.

Where paying more genuinely changes December is location. With the light gone at 5:33 p.m., a room inside walking distance of the sand buys back the hour a causeway crossing takes twice a day. If the budget prefers the mainland, the free Metromover covers Downtown and Brickell with cars every 90 seconds at rush hour, and Metrobus route 120, the Beach MAX, crosses the MacArthur Causeway for $2.25. Our Florida trip-cost guide handles the rest of the budget.

Things to do in Miami in December

December hands you the outdoors for the whole day. At 78.2°F with 2.44 inches of rain in the month, walking Little Havana at noon is a pleasure that June, at around 90°F with humidity between 85 and 90 percent and afternoon thunderstorms, refuses to be. The dry season does the same job for the marsh an hour west, where falling water concentrates alligators and wading birds along the boardwalks (the Everglades guide has the trails and entrances).

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, in north Coconut Grove inside the City of Miami, opens Wednesday to Monday from 9:30 a.m., takes its last admission at 4:30 p.m. and closes Tuesdays. Adult admission is $20 while restoration work continues, down from the usual $25, children 6 to 12 pay $5, under-6 enter free, and the Metrorail Vizcaya station is a short walk. On Key Biscayne, parking at Crandon Park runs $7 on weekdays and $10 at weekends. South Pointe Park is free to enter, its lot starts at $2 an hour and flips to a $20 flat day rate on weekends and public holidays.

Free options matter more in a short-daylight month. The Pérez Art Museum Miami waives admission every Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. and all day on the second Saturday, with art-making from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lummus Park costs nothing and never closes. The Miami Beach trolley is free, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, about every 20 minutes on five routes including the Collins Express along the length of Collins Avenue. Metromover is free downtown, though Miami-Dade publishes 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. while other sources give 5 a.m. to midnight.

Miami in December: two-day itinerary and 5:33 p.m. sunset times

Day one, on the island. Be on the sand at Lummus Park by 8 a.m., when the air is nearest that 64.3°F low and the lifeguards are already up. Swim before noon and again after 2 p.m., when the sea is closest to the daily peak behind the 79.1°F average. Ride the free trolley up Collins after lunch, cross to the mainland on route 120 for $2.25, and take the Metromover loop through Brickell while the light lasts. By 5:33 p.m. it is night, so treat dinner as an evening.

Day two, on the mainland. Metrorail to Vizcaya for the 9:30 a.m. opening, gardens first while the bay is still glassy, then Little Havana for lunch and Wynwood’s murals in mid-afternoon, all of it done before the light goes. If your day falls among the 3.7 wet ones, invert the order: the murals wait, PAMM’s free Thursday evening absorbs three hours, and a squall rarely costs more than one coffee stop. Days logging an inch or more average 0.5 per December, so a full washout is the exception, not the plan.

Miami in December vs November and January

Across the three months the air cools steadily and the rain drains away. November averages 81.3°F by day and 68.3°F at night with 3.53 inches over 4.7 wet days. December drops to 78.2°F and 64.3°F with 2.44 inches over 3.7 days. January is the coolest and driest of the three at 76.2°F and 61.0°F with 1.83 inches over 3.8 days. Sea surface follows the air with a lag: 81.7°F, then 79.1°F, then 77.0°F.

Shift four weeks earlier and November gives you 3.1 degrees more afternoon and 2.6 degrees more water, in exchange for an extra 1.1 inches of rain and the last four weeks of hurricane season, closed on November 30 (the November page has the detail). Shift four weeks later and January hands over the driest month on the record at 1.83 inches, against a 61.0°F night and water at 77.0°F, with rates already leaning into the February to April peak (January, in full).

Is December a good time to visit Miami?

For most travelers, yes. If you want beach mornings, water you can swim in without a wetsuit and all-day walking with no storm risk, December delivers 78.2°F air, 79.1°F sea and a month outside hurricane season. The answer flips for two groups: anyone traveling on price, since rates are climbing toward February, and anyone whose plans need long evenings outside, because the light quits at 5:33 p.m.

When the answer is no, look at January first. It surrenders 2.0 degrees of air and 2.1 degrees of water against December and returns the driest gauge reading of the year, 1.83 inches over 3.8 days. Going earlier instead, November is genuinely warmer at 81.3°F, with 3.53 inches of rain and a hurricane season technically open until the 30th. For the wider state calendar, our best-time guide lines up all twelve months.

One pairing belongs to December alone: water at 79.1°F with the hurricane season already shut, since November is warmer and still inside it while January is outside it and 2.1 degrees colder in the sea.

The last word

Book the bed before the flight, put the outdoor half of every day in front of 4:30 p.m., and Miami in December largely runs itself. Carry one number the hotels never mention: transit fares cap at $5.65 a day across Metrorail and Metrobus, single rides are $2.25, so two people can ride all day for $11.30, less than the $20 flat rate the South Pointe lot charges on a holiday weekend. Route 150, the Miami Beach Airport Express, does the airport run for the same $2.25, luggage racks included.

Sources & data for this guide

• December normals: high 78.2°F, low 64.3°F, 2.44 in, 3.7 days at 0.10 in or more, 0.5 day at 1 in or more · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00012839 (Miami International Airport) · checked Sep 14, 2026
• November and January normals, same station and same 30-year window · NOAA NCEI · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Sea surface 79.1°F in December, mean of daily maxima 2015-2024 (also 81.7°F November, 77.0°F January) · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Unresolved divergence on winter water: seatemperature.org and Current Results put the Atlantic here nearer 72°F · we give both ranges rather than pick one · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Daylight 10 h 35 min and sunset 5:33 p.m. on December 15 · sunrise-sunset.org, converted to America/New_York · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Hurricane season dates and September 10 peak · NOAA National Hurricane Center · checked Sep 14, 2026
• 6.0% transient rental tax, filed with the 6% state sales tax · Florida Department of Revenue, form DR-15TDT · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Vizcaya hours, Tuesday closure and $20 restoration-period admission · vizcaya.org · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Free Thursday evenings and second Saturdays · pamm.org · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Fares ($2.25, $5.65 daily cap), free Metromover, free Miami Beach trolley, routes 120 and 150 · Miami-Dade Transit and City of Miami Beach · checked Sep 14, 2026 · Metromover’s published hours differ between official and local sources, and we say so above
• Parking rates at South Pointe Park and Crandon Park · City of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade Parks · checked Sep 14, 2026 · parking prices change often
• Seasonal rate pattern and resort-fee ranges are market signals, not official statistics · the six-to-eight-week booking target is our own estimate.