NAZARÉ · PORTUGAL · SEPTEMBER
September hands Nazaré a 69.6°F afternoon, a 62.9°F ocean and 0.99 inches of rain spread across the whole month. The air has barely shifted since August, down 0.6°F on the average high, while the water has crept up 1.5°F. The calendar around those numbers is what moves, and it moves a lot more than the thermometer does.
If Nazaré is already picked, the open question is the date. The normals below come from a real coastal thermometer, with the water, the daylight and the same week read four weeks earlier and four weeks later. For the town itself, the beaches and the practical side of a stay, our Nazaré guide carries them.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · NAZARÉ · SEPTEMBER
September keeps August’s air within 0.6°F, adds a degree and a half to the water, and still runs less than a third of October’s rain, which makes it the most balanced of the three months for a beach-and-clifftop trip.
IPMA 1991-2020 NORMALS · CABO CARVOEIRO STATION · 12H 29M OF DAYLIGHT ON SEPT 15
Go for: afternoons near 69.6°F, four wet days instead of October’s nine, water 1.5°F above August’s, and clifftop light that lasts until 7:47 pm.
Think twice before: booking a swimming trip on the sea figure alone. 62.9°F is wetsuit water for most American swimmers, and it is an average of daily maxima, so the morning ocean sits under it.
Air and rain: IPMA station 531, Cabo Carvoeiro · Sea: Open-Meteo Marine API, 2015 to 2024 · Daylight: sunrise-sunset.org · full sources at the end
On this page
- Nazaré weather in September69.6°F highs, 0.99 inches, 4.1 wet days
- Sea temperature for swimming62.9°F, and what that feels like
- How busy the month getsBooking lead time and the tourist-tax question
- Things to do in Nazaré in SeptemberSítio, Praia do Norte and the clifftop path
- A two-day plan built around the lightHour by hour, with sunset at 7:47 pm
- September or October?How August, September and October compare
- Is September a good time to go?Our verdict, and who should shift dates
One warning to carry through everything that follows the intro: every figure here is a coastal reading. It describes the exposed shoreline, not the hills behind it, and it is not a substitute for a forecast on the day you fly.
Nazaré weather in September: average highs, lows and rain days
| September in Nazaré | Value | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| Average high | 69.6°F | IPMA, 1991-2020 |
| Average low | 62.1°F | IPMA, 1991-2020 |
| Precipitation | 0.99 in | IPMA, 1991-2020 |
| Days with 0.04 in or more | 4.1 | IPMA, 1991-2020 |
| Days with 0.39 in or more | 0.7 | IPMA, 1991-2020 |
| Sea surface | 62.9°F | Marine model, 2015-2024 |
| Daylight on Sept 15 | 12h 29m | Sunrise/sunset calculation |
These normals come from IPMA, the Portuguese national weather service, and specifically from station 531 at Cabo Carvoeiro, a thermometer standing 32 meters above sea level on the same exposed stretch of coast. That matters: it is an instrument, not a model grid cell hovering over open water. For 1991 to 2020 it puts the September average high at 69.6°F, the average low at 62.1°F and the month’s precipitation at 0.99 inches. Read those as coastal values. Higher ground inland runs colder and considerably wetter, so nobody should pack for a hill walk on a seafront reading.
Rain arrives on 4.1 days in an average September, counting anything from 0.04 inch up. That is roughly one day in seven. Only 0.7 of a day reaches 0.39 inch or more, so a genuine soaking turns up in about two Septembers out of three. Both thresholds are IPMA’s own, not the 0.10-inch line American tables use, and the counts are not interchangeable with the ones on your home forecast app. Translated into a trip, the month owes you a wet morning, not a wet week.
Day and night sit 7.5°F apart, a narrow spread by American standards and the signature of a town pinned against the Atlantic. An afternoon in the high 60s asks for very little. An evening at 62.1°F on the Sítio clifftop, with air coming off the water, asks for a windproof layer and sleeves. Add swim gear you accept being cold in, and leave the heavy coat home. Our packing guide has the rest of the list.
On September 15 the sun rises at 7:18 am and sets at 7:47 pm local time, for 12 hours 29 minutes of daylight. Those are the 06:18 and 18:47 UTC that sunrise-sunset.org publishes, converted to the UTC+1 Portugal keeps in September. The effect on a day here is simple enough: a 9 pm dinner is a dinner after dark, and the last light over the water is gone by 7:50. Put the clifftop at the end of the afternoon and the sand in the middle of it.
Can you swim in Nazaré in September? Sea temperature and what it feels like
The Open-Meteo marine model puts the sea surface off Nazaré at 62.9°F in September, averaged over 2015 to 2024. Read the small print before you pack a swimsuit and nothing else: that number is the mean of daily maxima, the warmest reading of each day, so it sits a shade above a true 24-hour average. Whatever the water does at 8 am, it does it below 62.9°F.
Sixty-three degrees is swimmable and not comfortable. The air does less rescuing than you would hope, because a 69.6°F afternoon is only 6.7°F warmer than the sea, so getting out is not the reward it is on a Gulf beach. A 3/2 wetsuit turns the same water into an afternoon rather than a dare, and children in shorties last far longer than adults in swim trunks. Short, repeated swims beat one long one.
We could not verify wind or wave statistics for September here: the station record we read carries temperature and precipitation, and our marine source carries water temperature, nothing on swell height. Geography still says something. The headland at Sítio shelters the bay beach, while Praia do Norte on the far side takes the open Atlantic square on. The giant waves that made the town’s name are a winter story, and we have no September wave figures to set beside them.
How busy is Nazaré in September? Crowds, prices and the demand peak
August is when Portugal takes its holidays and when European school breaks peak, and Nazaré is a beach town at the end of that funnel. September inherits almost all of the weather, 69.6°F against August’s 70.2, without inheriting the whole calendar. We looked for an occupancy series and a monthly room-rate series for Nazaré and found neither, so we crown no month cheap and no month expensive. The one gap we can measure between the two months is 0.6°F.
Booking behaves as if the month has two halves. The first weekends still run on summer demand, and four to six weeks of lead time is a sensible target for them (est.). A midweek stay in the last ten days is the easier ask, and short notice works more often. If the trip starts with a transatlantic leg, sort the flight before the room: our flights guide covers the US routes, and getting around handles the last leg up the coast.
We could not verify whether Nazaré levies a tourist tax, or at what rate, so we give no percentage and no per-night figure. Ask the property to state it in writing before you pay, and treat any amount shown on a booking aggregator as unconfirmed until the front desk repeats it.
One upgrade genuinely changes the month rather than the room: sleeping in the lower town, a few minutes from the sand. With 12 hours 29 minutes of daylight and a 62.9°F sea, the day works in short bursts, swim, retreat, change, come back out, and a bed up on the Sítio clifftop turns every one of those into a funicular ride or a climb.
Things to do in Nazaré in September
Only September pairs near-summer air with a rain figure you can plan around: 0.99 inches against October’s 3.33, and 4.1 wet days against 9.2. August is drier still at 0.42 inches, but its water runs 1.5°F colder and it carries the full holiday calendar. That combination opens the whole menu at once, beach hours in the middle of the day and cliff walking at the end of it, which October cannot promise and August makes crowded.
Praia da Nazaré is the wide bay beach, a few streets from the lower town. The Ascensor da Nazaré, the funicular, climbs the cliff to Sítio, and we could not verify its current fare or running hours, so check with the operator before you build a day on it. Sítio holds the Nossa Senhora da Nazaré sanctuary and the Suberco viewpoint over the bay. Past it stands the Forte de São Miguel Arcanjo, lighthouse and surfing exhibition above Praia do Norte; its admission and hours were not verified either.
The water at those beaches barely notices the month, moving 1.5°F from August and another 2.9°F by the end of October. The air does the moving. At 69.6°F by day and 62.1°F at night, the clifftop after 6 pm is a different proposition from the sheltered sand at 3 pm, in the same bay, on the same afternoon. Take the top late and the beach in the middle, and one light layer covers both.
Free, and worth an hour each: the Suberco viewpoint, the clifftop walk out toward the lighthouse, and the beach itself. What we could not verify is the price of a sunbed or a parasol on Praia da Nazaré, so budget nothing for shade until you have asked on the sand.
Nazaré in September: a two-day itinerary
Day one runs on the light. Sunrise at 7:18 means the bay beach is usable and quiet by 8:30, good for a walk and a coffee. Swim between noon and 4 pm, when the air is closest to its 69.6°F high and the water has had the morning to climb toward 62.9. Ride the funicular or take the steps up to Sítio around 5, walk to Suberco, and hold the viewpoint until the sun goes at 7:47. Dinner afterward happens in the dark, and the lower town is built for it.
Day two goes north along the clifftop path, past the Forte de São Miguel Arcanjo, with Praia do Norte below, then back down for a late lunch. If the sky turns, the numbers set expectations: 4.1 wet days in the month and only 0.7 of them heavy, which usually means a wet morning rather than a lost day. Move the walk to the afternoon, spend the gray hours at the sanctuary and the fort exhibition, and if it settles in for good, Óbidos inland gives you a walled town to walk.
Nazaré in September vs August and October
| Measure | August | September | October |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 70.2°F | 69.6°F | 67.3°F |
| Average low | 63.0°F | 62.1°F | 59.5°F |
| Precipitation | 0.42 in | 0.99 in | 3.33 in |
| Days with 0.04 in or more | 1.8 | 4.1 | 9.2 |
| Sea surface (daily maxima) | 61.4°F | 62.9°F | 65.8°F |
Across the three months the air slides gently and the rain does not. Highs go 70.2, 69.6, 67.3, and lows 63.0, 62.1, 59.5, the whole set inside 3.5°F. Precipitation goes 0.42, 0.99 and 3.33 inches, close to an eightfold climb from August to October, and wet days go 1.8, 4.1, 9.2. The ocean runs against the air: 61.4°F, then 62.9, then 65.8, all as means of daily maxima from the marine model rather than from the station.
Shift four weeks earlier and you buy the driest of the three, 0.42 inches and under two wet days, paying for it with the coldest water and the busiest calendar. Shift four weeks later and you get the warmest sea of the three at 65.8°F, 2.9°F above September, in exchange for 3.33 inches of rain and nine wet days. Our August page and our October page each take their month in full. September sits in the middle and is the only one of the three where both ends of the day work.
Is September a good time to visit Nazaré?
For most travelers, yes. You get an afternoon within 0.6°F of August’s, a month that rains on roughly one day in seven, and a coast that still functions in the evening. The no goes to anyone whose idea of a beach week involves 80°F water and floating for an hour: a 62.9°F daily maximum will not deliver that, and neither will any month here.
If that describes your trip, the fix is not a different month in Nazaré. The neighbors are either colder in the water or three times wetter in the air, and the numbers above say so. Look south instead, where our country-wide timing guide sorts the coasts season by season and the Algarve guide covers the southern shore.
What September alone does: it puts August’s air over water 1.5°F warmer, under 12 and a half hours of daylight, with less than a third of October’s rain.
The last word
Book the bed near the sand, bring a windproof layer for the cliff, and let the clock do the planning. One number left to carry: the average overnight low of 62.1°F sits 0.8°F below the sea’s average daily maximum of 62.9°F. By the numbers, the evening air cools past the water, so a 6 pm swim is warmer than it looks from the promenade while the light drains. Sunset on the 15th is 7:47 pm. Be on the clifftop by 7:15.
Sources & data for this guide
- September air normals, 69.6°F / 62.1°F, 0.99 in · IPMA, 1991-2020 climate normals, station 531 Cabo Carvoeiro, 32.0 m · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Rain-day counts, 4.1 days at 0.04 in and 0.7 day at 0.39 in · IPMA, 1991-2020, station 531 · thresholds are IPMA’s, not the 0.10-inch US convention · checked Sep 24, 2026
- August and October air normals · IPMA, 1991-2020, station 531 · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Sea surface 61.4 / 62.9 / 65.8°F · Open-Meteo Marine API, 2015-2024 mean of daily maxima · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Daylight and sun times, 12h 29m, 06:18 and 18:47 UTC on Sept 15 · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 24, 2026
- Editorial admissions: the station sits at Cabo Carvoeiro near Peniche on the same exposed coast, so inland and high ground differ. We found no occupancy or room-rate series for Nazaré, verified no tourist-tax rate, and verified no wind or wave statistics. Fares and hours for the funicular, the fort and the sanctuary were not verified · check operators when you book.