i
Photo by King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Philadelphia in May
sweet spot · one of the best months to go · the wettest month of the year
The year in Philadelphia
Tap a month for its page
- JanJPhiladelphia in January: avoid
- FebFPhiladelphia in February: ok
- MarMPhiladelphia in March: good
- AprAPhiladelphia in April: sweet spot
- MayMPhiladelphia in May: sweet spot
- JunJPhiladelphia in June: good, busy
- JulJPhiladelphia in July: good, busy
- AugAPhiladelphia in August: good
- SepSPhiladelphia in September: sweet spot
- OctOPhiladelphia in October: sweet spot
- NovNPhiladelphia in November: ok, busy
- DecDPhiladelphia in December: ok
- 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 | 23°C |
|---|---|
| Nightly low | 12°C |
| Feels like, afternoon | 22°C |
| Rainy days, 1 mm or more | 11 · 122 mm |
| Humidity | 68% |
| Sunshine | 9.5 h/day |
| Daylight | 14.4 h/day |
| Days over 35°C | 0 |
| Crowds | 93 / 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 Center City, 11 km from the airport (PHL): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.
How busy it gets
Public holidays in May
Holidays crowd a place out and push fares up around them; they count toward the crowd score above.
Philadelphia in pictures
i
King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
i
King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
i
Chuck Homler, Focus On Wildlife, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What to pack
- A packable rain jacket for the 11 or so rainy days.
- Sun protection: about 10 hours of sunshine a day.
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 United states dollar. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Global Affairs Canada: Exercise normal security precautions. Everything for United States: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.
On arrival in Philadelphia: the apps, paying, getting around, tipping and the emergency numbers.
May elsewhere
In May from
The other months at Philadelphia
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.