i
Photo by DXR, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Ottawa in December
avoid · not the best time to go
The year in Ottawa
Tap a month for its page
- JanJOttawa in January: avoid
- FebFOttawa in February: avoid
- MarMOttawa in March: avoid
- AprAOttawa in April: ok
- MayMOttawa in May: sweet spot
- JunJOttawa in June: good, busy
- JulJOttawa in July: good, busy
- AugAOttawa in August: good, busy
- SepSOttawa in September: sweet spot
- OctOOttawa in October: ok
- NovNOttawa in November: avoid
- DecDOttawa in December: avoid
- Sweet spot
- Good
- OK
- Avoid
- Busy
Plan this trip
Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too.
Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank
Flights from
Flights
Your city is a guess from your time zone. Choose your city
Where are you flying from? Choose your city for its flights and fares.
Book with the airline
Where to stay
Book direct
Luxury
Things to do
Car hire
Rent direct
Travel insurance
Check whether your bank card or home insurance already covers this trip.
If the trip needs a visa, the travel agent or visa centre usually sells the cover it asks for.
Mobile data (eSIM)
Your own plan's EU roaming may already cover this.
Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is the other common way to stay connected.
These are sites people in book with. Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.
The numbers
| Daily high | -1°C |
|---|---|
| Nightly low | -8°C |
| Feels like, afternoon | -5°C |
| Rainy days, 1 mm or more | 10 · 83 mm |
| Humidity | 77% |
| Sunshine | 3.8 h/day |
| Daylight | 8.8 h/day |
| Crowds | 80 / 100, higher is quieter |
Ten-year averages for this calendar month. A rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts it. The model these figures come from drizzles more than a rain gauge, the more so the warmer the month, so its days count from 2 mm, rising to 5 mm in the hottest.
Weather read at Parliament Hill, 12 km from the airport (YOW): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.
How busy it gets
Public holidays in December
Holidays crowd a place out and push fares up around them; they count toward the crowd score above.
Ottawa in pictures
i
Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
i
Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
i
Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What to pack
- A proper coat, hat and gloves: nights average -8°C.
- A packable rain jacket for the 10 or so rainy days.
- Humidity averages 77%; breathable fabrics dry faster.
Each line is a threshold over the ten-year figures above, not advice from anywhere else.
Before you go
Type A and B plugs at 120 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the Canadian dollar. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. US State Department: Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions. Everything for Canada: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.
On arrival in Ottawa: the apps, paying, getting around, tipping and the emergency numbers.
December elsewhere
In December from
The other months at Ottawa
Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book through one, at no extra cost to you. That does not affect the numbers on this page, which are computed before any link is built.