FLORIDA · WEKIWA SPRINGS · MAY
By May the afternoon average at Orlando International reaches 88.4°F, and the spring about 27 miles (44 km) northwest reads close to 75.6°F no matter what the calendar says. That gap of nearly thirteen degrees is why Central Florida drives out to Wekiwa Springs State Park in late spring. The water has no season. The air has one, and in May it shows up in full.
May also delivers the last stretch of manageable rain before the wet season takes charge: 4.02 inches spread over 5.7 measurable days, against 8.05 inches and 11.5 days in June. Weekends are the pinch point instead. The state counts 325 parking spaces at the park, and the gate closes when they fill.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · WEKIWA SPRINGS · MAY
May buys you summer-grade heat over 75.6°F spring water with half of June’s rainfall, provided you reach the 325-space lot early on a weekend.
AVERAGE HIGH 88.4°F · 4.02 IN OVER 5.7 WET DAYS · 13H38 OF DAYLIGHT ON MAY 15
Go for: 75.6°F spring water under 88-degree air, 15.9 miles of paddling trail, and evening light that holds until 8:11 p.m.
Think twice before: arriving after mid-morning on a weekend: the park counts 325 parking spaces, and the gate closes once they are taken.
Climate: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, Orlando Intl AP · Water: USGS gauge 02234600 · Facilities: Florida DEP inventory 2024 · full sources at the end
On this page
- Average highs, lows and rain days in May88.4°F days, 4.02 inches, 5.7 wet days
- How warm the water and the air get75.6°F on the USGS gauge
- Crowds, parking and what May costs325 spaces and one gate
- Things to do at the spring in May13.7 miles of trail, 15.9 miles of paddling
- A two-day plan around the heatSunrise 6:33 a.m., sunset 8:11 p.m.
- May, April or June?How the three months compare
- Is May a good month to go?Yes for swimmers, no for midday hikers
One distinction governs every figure here. The temperatures and rainfall describe the air over Central Florida, measured at an airport field 27 miles away; the spring itself runs at its own steady temperature year round. A month page at Wekiwa is therefore a page about what the sky is doing to a body of water that ignores the sky entirely.
Wekiwa Springs weather in May: average highs, lows and rain days
| May at Wekiwa Springs | Figure |
|---|---|
| Average high | 88.4°F |
| Average low | 66.3°F |
| Precipitation | 4.02 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 5.7 |
| Days with 1 in or more | 1.4 |
| Daylight on May 15 | 13 h 38 min |
| Sunrise and sunset, May 15 | 6:33 a.m. · 8:11 p.m. EDT |
| Spring water | 75.6°F, gauge reading Sep 11, 2026 |
Those normals are NOAA NCEI’s 1991-2020 monthly series for station USW00012815, the thermometer at Orlando International Airport, roughly 27 miles (44 km) southeast of the spring. It is an instrument on a real field, not a reanalysis grid cell, and the two methods rarely agree exactly, least of all on overnight lows. Read them as Orlando’s air: 88.4°F by day, 66.3°F before dawn, 4.02 inches of rain across the month.
Measurable rain lands on 5.7 days in an average May, so about five days in six record nothing an umbrella would notice. Heavier weather is rarer: 1.4 days reach a full inch, meaning one or two genuine soakings in a typical month. Over a three-day stay the average works out to roughly half a wet day, and the twenty-five or so dry days do the rest of the work.
A 66.3°F dawn and an 88.4°F afternoon sit 22.1 degrees apart, and a single visit can meet both. Pack a light long-sleeve layer for the first hour after sunrise, when the picnic tables are still cool, then a hat, sunscreen and more water than seems reasonable for everything after ten. Swimsuits dry fast in this air. Cotton shirts worn in the spring do not.
May 15 runs 13 hours 38 minutes of daylight, from a 6:33 a.m. sunrise to an 8:11 p.m. sunset once the UTC figures from sunrise-sunset.org are converted to local time. Two long shoulders of usable light bracket the heat, and the evening one holds past eight o’clock, which is unusually generous for a park visit that started before breakfast.
How warm is Wekiwa Springs in May?
The month averages 88.4°F at its warmest and 66.3°F at its coolest, a daily swing of 22.1 degrees. April swings slightly wider, 22.9 degrees between 83.6 and 60.7. June narrows to 19.2, because its nights stop cooling off: 71.6°F is the June low. May is the last month here whose mornings still feel like a different season from its afternoons.
In practice you dress twice. A layer until about nine, then nothing but sun protection until the light goes. The water is the other half of the answer: the USGS gauge at station 02234600 read 75.6°F on September 11, 2026. That is a single instantaneous reading rather than a May average, so treat it as the order of magnitude, not a forecast. A spring does not have seasons. Against 88-degree air, 75.6°F reads as relief within a minute.
We could not verify a freezing-night count for May at this station, so we publish none. What we can publish is the normal low, 66.3°F, which puts the month nowhere near frost territory. Nobody needs a jacket in Central Florida in May, and the nights are warm enough that an early tent packup is comfortable rather than brisk.
How busy is Wekiwa Springs in May? Crowds, prices and the parking gate
May sits between two demand engines: the spring-break weeks that fill Florida in March, and the school vacations that arrive with June. It is also the first month of the wet season on the state’s calendar, as our month-by-month view of Florida lays out. We found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate figures for the Apopka corridor, so we crown no month the cheapest or the most expensive of the year.
What runs out here is not a room, it is a parking space. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection counts 325 of them, and the gate closes once the lot is taken, which is the single reservation-like constraint of the whole visit. Plan a weekend arrival within the first hour or two of daylight. We could not verify the park’s opening hour from the official site, so check it the night before you set an alarm.
On money, our reading came up short twice, and we would rather say so than round. We could not verify the county lodging-tax rate, so we give no percentage. We also could not verify the park’s entrance fee: floridastateparks.org answered our automated reads with a 403 error, and a gate price copied from another Florida park does not transfer. For trip-level budgeting, our Florida cost guide is the better tool.
The one outlay that changes the month is getting on the water rather than standing in it. The park holds exactly one canoe, kayak and tube launch, and from it run 15.9 miles of paddling trail. Ask about rental rates when you arrive. The difference is between one designated swimming area shared with everyone else and a morning’s worth of river.
Things to do in Wekiwa Springs in May
May is the crossover month: hot enough that 75.6°F water is a reward rather than a dare, dry enough that the afternoon is not automatically forfeited. April, averaging 83.6°F, asks more of you in the first thirty seconds of the swim. June brings the heat you wanted and 8.05 inches of rain over 11.5 wet days along with it. Swim, paddle and hike plans all survive a May week intact.
The state’s 2024 facilities inventory counts what Wekiwa Springs State Park holds: 1 designated swimming area, 1 launch for canoes, kayaks and tubes, 15.9 miles of paddling trail, 13.7 miles of hiking trail, 1,435 feet of boardwalk and those 325 parking spaces. One spring, one pool, one launch. The trail mileage is where the crowd thins out fastest.
None of that inventory changes with the month, and neither does the water. What changes is the difference between the two. In April the air sits 8 degrees above the spring; in May the gap opens to nearly 13; by June it is 15. The same swim gets more welcome each month, while the same 13.7 miles of trail gets harder each month. Hike early and swim late, in that order.
On what costs nothing in May, we have to pass: our fee reading failed, so we will not label anything here free or paid. One thing does come at no cost, in the statute books. Florida law names Wekiwa Springs outright as an Outstanding Florida Spring, protection granted by hand rather than earned by volume. The main Wekiwa Springs guide carries the park-level detail.
Wekiwa Springs in May: a two-day itinerary
Day one runs on the 6:33 a.m. sunrise. Reach the gate in the first hour of light, park while spaces remain out of the 325, and take a segment of the 13.7 miles of hiking trail while the air is still near its 66.3°F overnight low. Swim by mid-morning, once the sun makes 75.6°F water look like a good idea. Sit out the 88-degree hours under cover. Walk the 1,435 feet of boardwalk after five, with light until 8:11 p.m.
Day two belongs to the launch: onto the paddling trail early, with as much of its 15.9 miles as the heat allows, then back to shade before noon. If the day turns out to be one of the 1.4 inch-plus days a May typically carries, flip the plan toward Orlando and its indoor half, listed in our Florida things-to-do guide. Storm days here usually pass rather than settle, and the spring temperature will not have noticed.
Wekiwa Springs in May vs April and June
| Measure | April | May | June |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 83.6°F | 88.4°F | 90.8°F |
| Average low | 60.7°F | 66.3°F | 71.6°F |
| Precipitation | 2.58 in | 4.02 in | 8.05 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 3.9 | 5.7 | 11.5 |
| Spring water | No seasonal swing | 75.6°F, gauge, Sep 11, 2026 | No seasonal swing |
Across the three months the air climbs 7.2 degrees by day and 10.9 by night, while the spring stays put. Rain is where the real break happens: 2.58 inches in April, 4.02 in May, then 8.05 in June, essentially double May over four weeks. Wet days follow the same curve, 3.9 to 5.7 to 11.5. All figures come from the same NOAA station and the same 1991-2020 period.
Shift back four weeks to April and you save 1.44 inches of rain and nearly two wet days, at the cost of afternoons 4.8 degrees cooler, which makes the first minute in the spring a colder negotiation. Our April page makes that case in full. Shift forward to June and you gain 2.4 degrees of warmth and inherit twice the rainfall and twice the wet days.
Is May a good time to visit Wekiwa Springs?
For swimmers and paddlers who can start early, yes: the warmth has arrived, the rain has not, and 5.7 wet days out of 31 is a favorable bet. For anyone planning long midday hikes across those 13.7 miles, or hoping to roll up at noon on a Saturday and find one of 325 spaces, no. The heat and the lot are the two things May will not negotiate.
If that verdict lands wrong, April is the month to shift to: 83.6°F highs, 2.58 inches over 3.9 wet days, and dawns down at 60.7°F that make the trails comfortable hours longer. You give up some of the contrast that makes the swim so good, and you gain a park day that does not have to end at eleven in the morning.
No other month here pairs 88-degree afternoons with barely four inches of rain: April is cooler, June is twice as wet, and only May puts both on the same page.
The last word
Set the alarm for the 6:33 a.m. sunrise and the rest of a May visit organizes itself: trail first, spring by mid-morning, shade through the 88-degree hours, boardwalk under light that lasts until 8:11 p.m. And a detail the statute publishes plainly: Florida law names Wekiwa alongside De Leon, Peacock, Poe, Rock Springs and Gemini, six springs written into the law by hand rather than by size.
Sources & data for this guide
- May normals (88.4°F high, 66.3°F low, 4.02 in) · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00012815, Orlando Intl AP, about 27 miles (44 km) from the spring · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Rain-day counts (5.7 days at 0.10 in or more, 1.4 days at 1 in or more) · NOAA NCEI, same series · checked Sep 24, 2026
- April and June normals used in the comparison · NOAA NCEI, same station and same 1991-2020 period · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight, sunrise and sunset for May 15 (13 h 38 min; 10:33 and 00:11 UTC, converted to local time) · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Spring water at 75.6°F (24.2°C) · U.S. Geological Survey, National Water Information System, station 02234600 Wekiwa Springs, instantaneous reading · read Sep 11, 2026
- Parking spaces, swimming area, launch, 15.9 mi paddling, 13.7 mi hiking, 1,435 ft boardwalk · Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Recreational Facilities Inventory, 2024 annual report · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Outstanding Florida Spring designation and the six hand-named springs · Florida Statutes 373.802(5) · checked Sep 24, 2026
- What we could not verify: entrance fee, opening hours and any manatee count. floridastateparks.org returned a 403 error to our automated reads and the FWC manatee page renders client-side · Sep 11, 2026. Check the park’s own site before you travel.