The Azores in May: Weather, Sea Temperature, Rain Days and Prices

AZORES · MAY · 1991–2020 NORMALS

Two numbers set the month on São Miguel: an average high of 68.4°F (20.2°C) and a sea holding 65.9°F (18.8°C). May is where the Azorean spring tips warm without going hot. Rain falls on 8.7 days out of 31, total rainfall drops to 2.40 inches (61 mm) from 3.13 inches in April, and the light hangs on until well past eight in the evening.

One caution before the figures. The Azores are nine islands, and the official May normals are measured at a single seafront observatory in Ponta Delgada. Pico da Vara, the high point of São Miguel at 1,105 m (3,625 ft), sits in colder and far wetter air than that gauge ever records. Pack for a mountain trail and you are packing for a different climate than the one below. The months either side are covered in April and June, the full year in Portugal month by month.

On this page

• Azores weather in MayHighs of 68.4°F and 8.7 rain days
• Can you swim in the Azores in May?A sea at 65.9°F, and what that means in the water
• Crowds and prices in MayThe Ponta Delgada tourist tax and its 3-night cap
• Things to do in the Azores in MayFurnas, Sete Cidades, Gorreana and the whale boats
• A two-day plan for São MiguelHour by hour, from 6:30 a.m. to 8:47 p.m.
• May, April or June?Three months of temperature, rain and sea
• Is May a good time to visit the Azores?Who May suits, and who should wait four weeks

Everything not dated by the month sits elsewhere: the car and its fuel in renting a car in Portugal, the layers in what to pack, the budget in what a Portugal trip costs.

Azores weather in May: average highs, lows and rain days

The climate figures here come from IPMA, Portugal’s national weather and sea institute, and from one station in particular: number 513, the Ponta Delgada Observatório, a thermometer standing at 35.0 m (115 ft) on the south coast of São Miguel, averaged over 1991 to 2020. May there runs to a high of 68.4°F (20.2°C), a low of 58.3°F (14.6°C) and 2.40 inches (61 mm) of rain. That is an instrument on the ground, not a reanalysis grid cell, which is worth knowing when two websites quote you different Azores.

Rain arrives on 8.7 days of the month at 1 mm (0.04 inch) or more, and only 1.8 days reach 10 mm (0.39 inch). Those are IPMA’s thresholds, lower than the 0.10-inch bar most American tables use, so the counts are not interchangeable with a US city’s. In practice, roughly two days in seven register something measurable, most of it passing weather over a coastline, and about two days in the whole month are the kind that rearrange a plan.

The gap between day and night is about ten degrees, 68.4°F down to 58.3°F. That is small by continental standards, and unhelpful for anyone who packs one item. A dry shell, a fleece and a T-shirt cover the same afternoon at Lagoa do Fogo and the same evening on a harbor terrace. Add shoes with grip: wet basalt and wet grass on the crater rims are the local trip hazard, and the high ground carries more water than the seafront gauge admits.

Light is the month’s quiet luxury. On May 15 the sun rises at 6:30 a.m. and sets at 8:47 p.m. local time, 14 hours 16 minutes of daylight, with usable glow for a while after. That buys a second lookout after dinner, and it means a boat trip that leaves at nine still leaves the whole afternoon standing.

Can you swim in the Azores in May? Sea temperature at 65.9°F

The surface sea off the Azores averages 65.9°F (18.8°C) in May, from Open-Meteo’s marine series over 2015 to 2024. Read the small print on that number: it is the mean of daily maxima, the warmest reading of each day, so it sits a shade above what a full 24-hour average would give. An 8 a.m. entry is cooler than the figure, an afternoon one closer to it.

For a swimmer, upper-sixties Fahrenheit water is a sharp, short pleasure. Plenty of people go in, move fast and get out inside ten minutes. Anyone planning to stay in past that wants a shorty wetsuit, and children lose heat faster than the adult who talked them into it. The warm-water fallback is inland: Furnas holds dozens of thermal springs, and Poça da Beija is a named bathing pool of clear water and ferrous mud.

On wind and swell we have nothing month-specific worth quoting, and would rather say so than dress up a guess. What our sources do carry is the shape of a boat day: a whale and dolphin trip runs about three hours, and the official recommendation is a minimum age of five, because a sea an adult calls calm is a long morning for a small passenger. Families weighing that will find more in Portugal with kids.

How busy are the Azores in May? Crowds, prices and the tourist tax

Where May sits in the price cycle is the one thing we cannot put a verified number on. No monthly occupancy series or hotel-rate index for the archipelago passed our checks, and inventing one would be worse than admitting the gap. What the climate curve says is plain enough: June turns 6.6 rain days and a 69.5°F sea, and the high season follows that curve rather than the calendar.

Booking behaves accordingly. The scarce items in May are not beds but the things with a fixed capacity: rental cars on an island where the road network is the itinerary, and the three-hour boat trips, which run all year and fill by weather window rather than by season. Reserve the car when you book the flight, the boat once you can see a forecast, and keep one flexible morning for the day the sea says no.

Ponta Delgada has charged a municipal tourist tax since January 2025. The city runs a dedicated platform for it, which we read, though the rate leaflet sits behind a login. Press reports and host guides converge on €2 per person per night for guests aged 13 and over, under-13s exempt, capped at three consecutive nights, so about €6 a head. Treat that as unconfirmed and have the property quote it in writing. The cap decides the bill more than the rate does: Porto charges €3 a night up to seven nights (€21), Funchal on Madeira €2 up to seven (€14).

The one line worth paying up for in May is mobility. São Miguel is 38.6 miles long and 9.8 miles at its widest (62.1 by 15.8 km), and IPMA’s own caveat is that another part of the island keeps its own weather. With a car, a gray morning at Sete Cidades becomes an afternoon in the thermal water at Furnas. On a fixed coach departure, the cloud that parked over one crater is your whole day. Details in the car guide.

Things to do in the Azores in May: Furnas, Sete Cidades and whale trips

Whale watching runs every month here, and May is the hinge in the year’s cast list. Blue whales are the animal of the end of winter. Sperm whales, sei whales and spotted dolphins are the ones described as frequent in summer. Between the two, what you can rely on are the residents: common dolphins and common bottlenose dolphins, present in any month, and swimming with them is permitted. These waters form one of the largest whale sanctuaries in the world, with more than 20 cetacean species recorded, about a third of every species that exists.

Terra Nostra Park at Furnas sets a thermal pool inside a botanical garden and prices visitors and residents differently: around €16 for a visiting adult against about €12.80 for a resident, under-6s free. Neither the park’s own site nor the regional tourism portal would open to automated reading, so take those as an order of magnitude and confirm at the gate. Gorreana has grown tea since 1883, claims the title of Europe’s oldest plantation and runs a museum-factory, as does Porto Formoso. We found no published hours for any of them, which makes that the call to place the night before.

The free half of the month is the half people photograph. Vista do Rei looks down on the twin Green and Blue lakes of Sete Cidades, and Lagoa do Fogo sits higher and wilder, with no gate at either. At the Caldeiras of Ribeira Grande, fumaroles steam among trees beside a thermal building dating from 1811. And the waterfront in Ponta Delgada, capital of the island since 1546, takes an evening walk at no charge with the sun still up.

The Azores in May: a two-day itinerary on São Miguel

Day one goes west, early. Coffee in Ponta Delgada by 7:30, at Vista do Rei above Sete Cidades before nine, when the caldera is likelier to be clear of its own cloud than at midday. Drive the rim, then cut east and give the middle of the day to Furnas: the fumaroles, then the thermal pool at Terra Nostra. That is the right use of a 68.4°F afternoon. Back on the coast road by six, dinner in town with light in the sky until 8:47 p.m.

Day two starts at the marina. The boat is about three hours, so a morning departure leaves the afternoon for Gorreana’s tea rows and the climb to Lagoa do Fogo. If the sea cancels, and in a month with 8.7 wet days it sometimes does, the substitution is already on the island: the Caldeiras of Ribeira Grande in the rain are better than in the sun, the tea museum-factory is indoors, and Poça da Beija does not care what is falling on it.

The Azores in May vs April and June

All three months come from the same IPMA station and the same 1991 to 2020 window, so the comparison is like for like. May sits 2.6°F above April by day and 3.9°F below June. It loses 1.5 rain days to April and gives 2.1 back to June. The sea follows the same slope: 63.0°F, then 65.9°F, then 69.5°F, each step just under three degrees, all three read as means of daily maxima.

Shift four weeks later and you gain the warmest water of the three, nearly a third less rainfall, and afternoons in the low seventies. You lose the quiet. Shift four weeks earlier and April hands back 0.73 inch of extra rain and a sea three degrees cooler, for a landscape at its greenest and boats that are easier to get on. The trade is clean, and the numbers are in April and June.

Is May a good time to visit the Azores?

Yes, for the traveler who came for land and water animals rather than a towel. Whale and dolphin trips run, the crater lookouts cost nothing, thermal bathing covers the cool half of the day, and 14 hours 16 minutes of light lets a driver fit two ends of the island into one day. No, for anyone whose trip depends on swimming. A 65.9°F sea, measured at its daily warmest, is a plunge and a towel, not an afternoon.

If that is the deal-breaker, take June. It moves the water to 69.5°F, cuts the wet days to 6.6 and lifts afternoons to 72.3°F, which is the difference between enduring the Atlantic and enjoying it. The cost is company: the island fills as the curve rises.

What May alone gives is the crossover: rainfall already down to 2.40 inches, light already at fourteen hours, and a sanctuary between its winter blue whales and its summer sperm whales, with the resident dolphins holding the line in between.

The last word

The decision that shapes a May trip is not the hotel, it is whether you can move when the sky changes: keep the car, keep one morning unbooked, and the 8.7 wet days become weather rather than a lost week. Ponta Delgada, for its part, has been the capital only since 1546, and only because an earthquake flattened Vila Franca do Campo in 1522. Standing at a fumarole in Furnas, steam coming out of the ground beside a footpath, you understand that these islands have not finished the conversation.

Sources & data for this guide

• May, April and June normals (highs, lows, rainfall, rain days) · IPMA, climatological normals 1991–2020, station 513 Ponta Delgada Observatório, altitude 35.0 m · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Scope caveat: the normals describe the south coast of São Miguel, not the high ground or the other islands · IPMA station 513 · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Sea surface 65.9°F in May, 63.0°F in April, 69.5°F in June, as means of daily maxima 2015–2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Daylight 14h 16m, sunrise 6:30 and sunset 20:47 on May 15 · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Whale watching seasons, three-hour trips, minimum age five, sanctuary and 20+ species · Visit Azores (official regional tourism board), Whale Watching · checked Sep 9, 2026
• São Miguel dimensions, Pico da Vara, Furnas thermal springs, Poça da Beija, Caldeiras of Ribeira Grande (1811), Sete Cidades and Lagoa do Fogo lookouts, capital since 1546 · Visit Azores, São Miguel · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Gorreana tea since 1883 and Porto Formoso museum-factories · Visit Azores and Plantações de Chá Gorreana · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Terra Nostra Park rates (≈€16 visitor, ≈€12.80 resident, under-6 free): unconfirmed. parqueterranostra.com returned 404 on its visit pages and turismo.azores.gov.pt returned 403 · attempted Sep 8, 2026
• Ponta Delgada tourist tax since January 2025: the municipal platform confirms the tax exists, the rate leaflet is behind a login. €2 per person per night, 13 and over, three-night cap, relayed by Jornal de Notícias and Correio dos Açores · read Sep 9, 2026
• Tax caps in Porto (€3, 7 nights) and Funchal (€2, 7 nights) · municipal primary sources · checked Sep 9, 2026
• We found no verified monthly occupancy or hotel-rate series for the Azores, so no price index is quoted here. Opening hours and admission prices change · confirm with operators when you book.