Ericeira in January: Weather, Rain Days, Daylight and How It Compares to December and February

ERICEIRA · JANUARY · PORTUGAL’S SURF COAST

January hands Ericeira back to the people who live in it. The surf schools that run three sessions a day in August keep one van on the road, the square outside the church parks at will, and the Atlantic goes on doing the loud thing it does all winter. Days run cool rather than cold: IPMA’s 1991-2020 normals put the month at 57.9°F by day and 46.0°F after dark, with 3.78 inches of rain spread across it.

Most Americans reach the town from Lisbon airport, which makes a two or three night stop easy to bolt onto a bigger trip, and a rental car matters more here in winter than the room does. Our flights guide covers the transatlantic side, the car guide the tolls and the pickup desk.

On this page

• Average highs, lows and rain days in JanuaryThe IPMA normals for the month
• How cold it gets at nightLows of 46.0°F, and what to wear
• Crowds, room rates and the lodging taxWhat we verified and what we could not
• Things to do in Ericeira in JanuaryRibeira d’Ilhas, the cliff path, Mafra
• A two-day plan around 9h 48m of daylightHour by hour, plus the rain version
• January vs December and FebruaryThree months of IPMA normals side by side
• Is January a good time to visit?Who should go, who should shift a month

Ericeira weather in January: average highs, lows and rain days

Every figure here comes from IPMA, the Portuguese weather and sea institute, and specifically from its 1991-2020 normals at station 579, Lisboa Gago Coutinho, a real thermometer at 103.9 m rather than a model grid cell. That instrument stands inland at Lisbon’s airport, not on Ericeira’s headland, so read 57.9°F by day and 46.0°F at night as the regional shape of January rather than a reading off the seawall. The coast here is exposed and feels windier than the number. Higher ground inland runs colder and a good deal wetter.

Rain reaches the ground on 9.9 days in an average January, counting every day with 0.04 inch or more, which works out at roughly one day in three. The serious soakings are rarer: 3.3 days at 0.39 inch or more, about one day in nine, and those are the afternoons you spend inside. Before you line this up against a US table, note that 0.04 inch is IPMA’s threshold, not the 0.10 inch American summaries use, so the two counts are not interchangeable.

Day and night sit 11.9 degrees apart, a small enough gap that one jacket covers both ends of the day. Pack a waterproof shell over a fleece, shoes that cope with wet cobbles, and something for the wind on the clifftop. A warm layer for dinner is not optional, because rentals and restaurants in a surf town are built against August heat rather than January damp. Our Portugal packing guide has the full list.

On January 15 the sun comes up at 7:51 a.m. and sets at 5:39 p.m., mainland Portugal staying on UTC through the winter, which gives 9 hours 48 minutes of daylight. Put the surf and the coast walk in the middle of that window. The light goes flat fast after four, the harbor is dark before six, and anything you planned for after dinner happens in the dark, so most January itineraries here do their driving before lunch.

How warm is Ericeira in January?

The month runs to 57.9°F at its daily peak and down to 46.0°F at its overnight floor, 11.9 degrees of swing. Both are thirty-year means, not a forecast. Individual days land either side of them, and a bright, still afternoon in a sheltered corner of the harbor feels considerably warmer than the figure suggests, while a northwesterly takes it the other way before you have finished your coffee.

In practice, mornings want a fleece and a shell from sunrise at 7:51 until the sun gets some height, and by early afternoon on a clear day you are carrying the fleece rather than wearing it. The water is a separate sport: winter here is a wetsuit month and the rental shops in town size you for one. We could not verify a January sea-surface figure for Ericeira, so we print none. When you find one elsewhere, remember that most sea tables publish an average of daily maxima, a touch warmer than a true 24-hour mean.

Frost is not part of the picture as far as we can tell. An average low of 46.0°F sits 14 degrees above freezing, and we found no count of nights at or below 32°F for this stretch of coast, so we give none. What the low does mean is that an unheated room gets genuinely cold by three in the morning in a town whose walls were designed against summer, which is a fair question to ask your host before you book.

How busy is Ericeira in January? Crowds, room rates and the lodging tax

January sits in the low season, and that much is calendar rather than conjecture: the surf camps run reduced schedules, the school holidays have ended once the New Year turn is over, and the crowd that makes parking a competitive sport in August is simply not there. What we cannot do is rank the months on money. We found no monthly occupancy series and no room-rate series for Ericeira, so we crown no month the cheapest and quote no nightly average.

Booking behaves accordingly. We could not verify a booking-window dataset either, so treat the following as our call and not a measurement: a week or two ahead usually covers a January weekend, the New Year turn being the obvious exception, and the car reserved at the airport matters more than the room you choose. Where to stay in Portugal frames the regional decision if Ericeira is one stop among several.

On the lodging tax we have nothing verified. Ericeira belongs to the municipality of Mafra, and we could not confirm whether a municipal tourist tax applies in January or at what rate, so we give no percentage. Look for a separate line on your booking confirmation, and ask at check-in if the reservation shows only a total.

One upgrade changes this month more than any other, and it is heating. A rental with a working heater, rather than a decorative wall unit, is the difference between a 46-degree night you sleep through and one you count the hours of. After that, spend on the car rather than the room: daylight is short, and the places worth reaching, Mafra inland and the reefs north of town, are not walkable from the square.

Things to do in Ericeira in January

What January gives you and August cannot is space. Winter swell out of the Atlantic is the reason this coast has the reputation it has, and lineups that are shoulder to shoulder in summer thin right out on a Tuesday morning. The same arithmetic applies on land: you can walk into a fish restaurant at eight without a reservation and park within sight of the door.

The named spots, running north to south: Coxos and Ribeira d’Ilhas on the reefs above town, the harbor beach of Praia dos Pescadores tucked under the seawall, Praia do Sul below the cliff path, and Foz do Lizandro at the river mouth a few minutes south. Inland stands the Palácio Nacional de Mafra, the vast convent-palace with its library and basilica, and that is the indoor day. We could not verify its January opening hours or its admission price, so we quote neither: check the palace site on the morning you plan to go.

The places themselves do not change in January, the air around them does. Same reefs, same seawall, same path along the cliff, but at 57.9°F, with a wind that goes straight through a cotton shirt and rain on roughly one day in three. That reshuffles the ranking. The climb from Praia dos Pescadores up to the viewpoint becomes the best hour of the day rather than a sunset stroll, and Mafra becomes the plan rather than the fallback.

The free list is long here in winter. Beaches, the cliff path, the harbor wall, the tide pools at low water and the tiled streets of the old center cost nothing, and neither does parking in a town that spends August hunting for a space. Bring a fleece and a windproof shell for the clifftop, and the coffee on the way back is the only outlay of the morning.

Ericeira in January: a two-day itinerary

Day one is built around 9 hours 48 minutes of light. Breakfast at 8, with the sun barely up since 7:51. Surf, or watch the surf, at Ribeira d’Ilhas from 9 to 11, while the parking area is still half empty. Lunch in town at 1, the warmest stretch of the day. Walk the cliff path south toward Praia do Sul between 2 and 4, then be indoors with something hot by 5, because the sun goes at 5:39. Dinner at 8, and the evening belongs to the restaurant.

Day two heads inland and keeps an escape route. Drive to Mafra for the palace, give it the whole morning, and come back for a late lunch by the harbor. A clear afternoon goes to Foz do Lizandro and the river mouth. If one of the 3.3 heavy rain days lands on you instead, keep driving: Sintra is close enough for a wet afternoon and Lisbon is an easy run on the same tank of gas, both of them at their best indoors. Either way, be off the country lanes before dark.

Ericeira in January vs December and February

Of the three, January is the coldest at both ends: 57.9°F by day against December’s 58.8°F and February’s 60.3°F, and 46.0°F at night against 47.7°F and 47.1°F. Rain sorts itself differently. December is the wettest at 3.94 inches, January takes 3.78, and February drops to 2.80, close to a full inch less, on 7.8 wet days against January’s 9.9.

Shift four weeks forward and you gain 2.4 degrees on the daily high, two fewer wet days and a longer afternoon, at the cost of some of January’s emptiness as the first half-term trips arrive. Shift four weeks back and December offers 0.9 degrees more by day and the holiday turn, along with 3.94 inches of rain and the shortest days of the year. The whole calendar, ranked, sits in our best time to visit Portugal guide.

Is January a good time to visit Ericeira?

Yes, if the water is the reason you are coming, or if emptiness is. Surfers get the swell that built the town’s name with room to move on it. Walkers get the cliff path at 57.9°F, which is close to ideal walking weather. Anyone allergic to queues gets a Portuguese coastal town running at its own speed. No, if you are picturing beach afternoons: 9 hours 48 minutes of light and rain on one day in three make a winter trip, and nobody should book it expecting a swim.

If that second answer is yours, take February instead: 60.3°F by day, 2.80 inches of rain, 7.8 wet days, and the same low-season quiet at better odds of a dry afternoon. Push to late spring and you get a different town again, warmer and much busier, and the trade-offs by month are laid out in the twelve-month verdict.

What January offers that the summer months cannot is the pairing of winter Atlantic swell with a town that has its parking, its tables and its reefs free at the same time.

The last word

Decide the room on its heating rather than its view. At 46.0°F overnight, a January bed in a building designed for August is the one thing that can sour the trip, and it costs nothing to ask before you book. The rest sorts itself out: two days here add up to 19 hours 36 minutes of daylight in total, so put the driving in the morning, the cliff path after lunch, and give the long dark evenings to the fish restaurants that stay open all winter.

Sources & data for this guide

• January normals: high 57.9°F, low 46.0°F, 3.78 in · IPMA, Normais Climatológicas 1991-2020, station 579 Lisboa Gago Coutinho, altitude 103.9 m · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Rain-day counts: 9.9 days at 0.04 in or more, 3.3 days at 0.39 in or more, on IPMA’s own thresholds, not the 0.10 in threshold of US tables · IPMA 1991-2020 · checked Sep 23, 2026
• December normals (58.8°F / 47.7°F, 3.94 in, 9.7 wet days) and February normals (60.3°F / 47.1°F, 2.80 in, 7.8 wet days) · IPMA 1991-2020, same station · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Daylight, sunrise 07:51 and sunset 17:39 on January 15, 9h 48m total · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 23, 2026
• The station stands inland at Lisbon’s airport, not on the Ericeira coast, and the normals do not describe higher ground, which runs colder and wetter · IPMA station metadata · checked Sep 23, 2026
• We could not verify a January sea-surface temperature, a monthly occupancy or room-rate series, a Mafra municipal lodging-tax rate, or any dated January event, so none of those figures appear.
• Beaches, reefs, the cliff path and the Mafra palace are named editorially; opening hours and admission change · check the operator before you drive.

To plan your stay

• Best Time to Visit Ericeira: Month-by-Month Weather, Rain Days and the Quiet Season
• Ericeira in February: 60°F Highs, 7.8 Rain Days and a Surf Coast at Local Size
• Ericeira in December: Weather, Rain Days and How It Compares to November and January
• Ericeira in March: Weather, Rain Days, Daylight and How It Compares to April

Nearby places

• Cascais, Portugal: the Town Beaches, Guincho and Where to Stay
• Sintra, Portugal: Pena, Regaleira, Tickets and the One-Day Plan
• Pena Palace Tickets and Visit Guide: Prices, Time Slots and Crowd Strategy