Lavender plateaus, Roman towns and the mistral — southern France at its most photographed. Daytime highs in Provence run from about 10 °C in January to 31 °C in July, an annual range of roughly 21 °C.
Measured against a city trip, the conditions hold up March to June and September to October. April is the most consistent single month: highs near 18 °C, nights around 8 °C, and roughly 63 mm of rain across the month.
What rules months out here is temperature, not any composite judgement. January is the weakest month on these criteria.
Visitor numbers follow their own curve. Recorded overnight stays peak in the two weeks from 13 August at about 2.6 times an average fortnight for this region, against 0.3 times in January. April is the useful case: it is the most consistent month on the weather and still sits at 0.8 times average on occupancy. On the separate question of how much tourism the area carries all year, Aix-en-Provence sits in the 41st densest of 294 European regions, at 10.8 overnight stays per resident a year.
What Provence is known for
- Roman remains at Arles, Orange and the Pont du Gard are among the best preserved outside Italy
- Lavender on the Valensole plateau flowers for a few weeks around late June and July
- Van Gogh painted over 300 works around Arles and Saint-Remy in barely two years
- The mistral wind funnels down the Rhone valley and can blow for days, clearing the sky and dropping the temperature
Month by month
| Month | High °C | Low °C | Precip mm | Wet days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 10 | 2 | 54 | 8.1 |
| February | 12 | 3 | 43 | 6.2 |
| March | 15 | 5 | 53 | 7.1 |
| April | 18 | 8 | 63 | 8.7 |
| May | 23 | 12 | 63 | 8.7 |
| June | 27 | 16 | 39 | 5.4 |
| July | 31 | 19 | 24 | 3.8 |
| August | 30 | 18 | 40 | 4.5 |
| September | 25 | 15 | 74 | 6.5 |
| October | 20 | 11 | 98 | 9.0 |
| November | 14 | 7 | 89 | 10.1 |
| December | 11 | 3 | 74 | 8.4 |
Ticked rows are months where every hard requirement for a city trip is met across at least half the month.
Open Provence on the map →
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Nearby regions
Figures are 30-year climatology sampled at Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Arles, Gordes and Saint-Remy, averaged across those locations, from ERA5-Land reanalysis fitted with a harmonic seasonal cycle and a trend term, evaluated for 2026. Sampling named towns rather than averaging the whole region avoids blending valley and mountain conditions into a figure true of neither. Cells are about 0.08° wide, from ERA5-Land's 0.1° grid, which is itself driven by a 0.25° (~28 km) atmospheric reanalysis — so individual valleys, sheltered bays and single summits are not resolved. In steep terrain read these as conditions for the wider area rather than for one village. They describe typical conditions, not a forecast. Read how the climatology is built.