Bad weather in Bilbao

Updated 26 October 2026. Averages for 2019–2025; 2026 up to 26 October 2026.

Bilbao is famous for rain, and rain is its top reason for a warning. The surprise is in the red days: every one of them has been for heat.

warning days a year

Spain: 54

8.0

orange or red warning days

a year

red days

2019–2025

#139

of 182 zones

1 = most warnings

That it rains in Bilbao is hardly news. The warnings tell a subtler story: rain that reaches warning level isn't the everyday drizzle but the heavy kind, and the city has fewer warning days than a typical Spanish zone.

The paradox is heat. Because the bar here is low (red starts at 40 °C, against 44 in Seville), the hot days that pass it become red warnings. That's why Bilbao has a fair number of red days, all of them for heat.

Bilbao has 351,124 inhabitants and sits in the Bizkaia interior warning zone (Bizkaia). Warnings are issued for the whole zone: it shares them with 14 other towns, such as Barakaldo, Basauri and Durango.

Bilbao's warning zone and its neighbours

AEMET doesn't warn by city but by zone: Bilbao gets the warnings for the Bizkaia interior zone, outlined on the map. The zones around it have their own thresholds and their own warnings.

Fewer warnings than averageClose to averageMore warnings than average

Average warning days a year, 2019–2025, against the median of Spain's zones (54 days). Tap a zone to go to its page.

Bilbao's bad-weather fingerprint

Each axis compares the warning days a year in Bilbao's zone with the average of Spain's 182 zones. The dashed circle is the average zone; the edge, three times the average or more.

More warnings than the average zone: snow (1.3×).

Fewer than average: fog, cold and wind.

Averages for 2019–2025. It measures how often AEMET issued warnings, not danger or damage.

The year, month by month

YellowOrangeRed

4.1Jan 1.7Feb 1.7Mar 1.3Apr 2.7May 7.9Jun 3.9Jul 5.4Aug 4.9Sep 2.1Oct 3.3Nov 2.1Dec

Warning days in each month, averaged over 2019–2025, by the day's highest level.

Every day since 2019

Each line is one year in Bilbao, January to December, and each mark a day with a warning in its zone: you can see at a glance when bad weather bunches up and which years were calmer.

yelloworangered

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec202657202548202434202343202232202149202036201946

The colour is each day's highest level. 2026: up to 26 October 2026. Hover or tap a mark to see the dates.

Which warnings, in which months

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Rain	1.0	0.6	0.4	0.7	2.1	5.1	1.1	2.1	3.4	0.9	1.7	1.3
Storms			0.3	0.9	2.0	5.7	1.7	2.1	2.6
Wind	1.4	0.6	0.9							1.1	1.3	1.1
Heat					0.3	2.0	2.6	3.1	1.4	0.3
Cold	0.1
Snow	2.0	0.6	0.3	0.4							0.6	0.4

Warning days of each type and month, yearly average 2019–2025. A day with rain and storms counts in both rows.

Month by month, in detail

January

4.1 warning days on average (1.1 orange or red). Mostly: snow and wind.

February

The quietest month

1.7 warning days on average. Mostly: rain and wind.

March

1.7 warning days on average. Mostly: wind and rain.

April

1.3 warning days on average (0.3 orange or red). Mostly: storms and rain.

May

2.7 warning days on average (0.1 orange or red). Mostly: rain and storms.

June

The busiest month1 red day since 2019

7.9 warning days on average (1.4 orange or red). Mostly: storms and rain.

July

3 red days since 2019

3.9 warning days on average (1.3 orange or red). Mostly: heat and storms.

August

5 red days since 2019

5.4 warning days on average (1.7 orange or red). Mostly: heat and rain.

September

4.9 warning days on average (1.1 orange or red). Mostly: rain and storms.

October

2.1 warning days on average (0.6 orange or red). Mostly: wind and rain.

November

3.3 warning days on average (0.3 orange or red). Mostly: rain and wind.

December

2.1 warning days on average. Mostly: rain and wind.

The best month to go (if you'd rather not see warnings)

Counting warning days and how serious they are, the quietest months in Bilbao are February and March: 1.7 and 1.7 warning days on average. The busiest is June, with 7.9.

June, by contrast, surprises: storms and the first heat make it one of the busiest.

Summers: the heat

Bilbao has 9.7 heat-warning days a year (4.0 of them orange or red). Yellow starts at a forecast high of 34 °C; orange at 37 °C; red at 40 °C.

The heat-warning season usually runs from 13 June to 11 September. The earliest one came on 21 May; the latest, on 2 October.

Red heat days since 2019: 27 June 2019, 23 July 2019, 30 July 2020, 18 July 2022, 9 August 2023, 23 August 2023, 11 August 2024, 12 August 2025, 15 August 2025, 21 June 2026, 22 June 2026, 23 June 2026 and 24 June 2026.

It doesn't mean Bilbao is hotter than Seville: the warning plan sets a lower bar where high temperatures are less usual.

Winters: cold, snow and wind

Winter (December to February) brings 8.0 warning days on average: rain (2.9), wind (3.1) and snow (3.0).

The yellow cold warning starts at lows of −4 °C; red, at −12 °C. Snow, at 2 cm in 24 hours.

Snow warnings are for the Bizkaia interior zone, which includes mountains: a snow warning in the zone doesn't mean snow in the city centre.

Rain and storms

Bilbao has 21 rain-warning days and 15 storm-warning days a year. The months with the most rain warnings are June, September and May.

Here the yellow rain warning starts at 15 mm in an hour or 40 mm in 12 hours; red, at 60 mm or 120 mm.

There hasn't been a single red rain or storm warning since 2019.

Wind, fog and coast

Wind warnings: 6.4 days a year; yellow starts at gusts of 90 km/h.

Year by year

Year	Warning days	Orange	Red	Mostly
2026*	57	8	4	heat and rain
2025	48	9	2	storms and rain
2024	34	5	1	rain and storms
2023	43	8	2	rain and storms
2022	32	9	1	heat and rain
2021	49	7	0	rain and storms
2020	36	4	1	rain and storms
2019	46	5	2	rain and wind

2026, up to 26 October 2026. For the same stretch of the year, the 2019–2025 average is 36 days.

The year with the most warnings was 2021, with 49 days.

The worst days

Every red day since June 2018:

24 June 2026 heat
23 June 2026 heat
22 June 2026 heat
21 June 2026 heat
15 August 2025 heat
12 August 2025 heat
11 August 2024 heat
23 August 2023 heat
9 August 2023 heat
18 July 2022 heat
30 July 2020 heat
23 July 2019 heat
27 June 2019 heat

The longest run of consecutive warning days lasted 8 days, from 18 June 2026 to 25 June 2026.

When a warning is issued in Bilbao

	Yellow	Orange	Red
Heat (high)	34 °C	37 °C	40 °C
Cold (low)	−4 °C	−8 °C	−12 °C
Wind (gusts)	90 km/h	110 km/h	140 km/h
Rain in 1 hour	15 mm	30 mm	60 mm
Rain in 12 hours	40 mm	80 mm	120 mm
Snow in 24 hours	2 cm	5 cm	20 cm

Thresholds for the Bizkaia interior zone in AEMET's warning plan. Storms have no numeric threshold: yellow for strong storms, orange for very strong ones. More in what each colour means.

Bilbao compared with other cities

City	Warning days a year	Orange or red a year	Red days since 2019	Mostly
Lleida	92	17	9	heat and storms
Zaragoza	89	22	20	heat and storms
Cuenca	85	14	3	heat and storms
Soria	85	9.1	1	storms and rain
Teruel	84	11	4	storms and rain
Albacete	83	14	7	heat and storms
Palma	78	15	1	rain and storms
Huesca	77	12	0	storms and rain
Segovia	74	8.0	0	storms and wind
Córdoba	73	29	15	heat and rain
Ávila	73	7.1	4	rain and wind
Sevilla	69	23	12	heat and rain
Pamplona	68	15	6	storms and rain
Ibiza	67	13	2	rain and wind
Girona	66	10	4	rain and storms
Madrid	65	16	5	heat and storms
Valladolid	65	9.0	0	heat and storms
Burgos	64	6.6	1	storms and rain
Zamora	63	7.1	0	heat and storms
Palencia	59	5.6	0	storms and rain
Jaén	59	25	7	heat and rain
Salamanca	59	6.4	0	heat and storms
Toledo	58	20	5	heat and rain
Logroño	58	14	7	storms and heat
Badajoz	57	19	9	heat and rain
Guadalajara	57	9.9	3	heat and storms
Granada	56	14	5	heat and storms
Almería	55	5.3	0	wind and heat
Dénia	55	12	8	rain and storms
Barcelona	54	9.4	5	rain and storms
Vitoria-Gasteiz	52	10	2	storms and wind
València	51	12	13	rain and storms
Ciudad Real	50	13	0	heat and rain
León	50	3.6	0	storms and rain
Tarragona	49	8.7	2	rain and storms
Murcia	46	13	11	heat and rain
Vigo	46	5.1	0	rain and wind
Castellón de la Plana	45	11	2	rain and storms
San Sebastián	43	5.7	4	rain and storms
Bilbao	41	8.0	9	rain and storms
Alicante	41	7.1	11	rain and heat
A Coruña	41	6.7	2	wind and rain
Cáceres	40	9.7	0	heat and rain
Lugo	39	3.3	0	rain and wind
Ourense	39	6.1	4	heat and rain
Cádiz	39	5.1	2	rain and wind
Huelva	39	9.1	7	heat and rain
Santa Cruz de Tenerife	37	5.7	3	wind and heat
Málaga	35	10	15	rain and heat
Santander	33	3.1	3	rain and wind
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria	26	2.9	0	heat and wind
Oviedo	26	3.1	1	rain and storms
Gijón	26	2.0	0	rain and wind
Avilés	22	1.9	0	rain and wind

Averages for 2019–2025. Careful: each zone has its own thresholds, so a warning doesn't mean exactly the same everywhere.

If you live in Bilbao or are thinking of moving

With 8.0 orange or red days a year, serious warnings come a few times a year, nearly always in the same seasons.
An umbrella is part of the uniform, but rain warnings are fewer than the reputation suggests.
Be ready for days of strong heat, even if they're few: they've reached red here in several summers.
June can already bring warnings: storms and the first heat.

In short

A rainy city, yes, but with fewer warnings than the Spanish median. Its most serious warnings come when you least expect them: with heat.

Frequently asked questions

When does it rain most in Bilbao?

Going by the warnings, the months with the most rain-warning days are June and September. On average there are 21 rain-warning days a year.

What's the best month to visit Bilbao?

If you want to dodge bad-weather warnings, February and March: they have the fewest warning days on average.

Have there been red warnings in Bilbao?

Yes: 13 red days since June 2018, the latest on 24 June 2026 (heat).

Does it get very hot in Bilbao?

There are 9.7 heat-warning days a year on average. The yellow warning here starts at a forecast high of 34 °C.

How this was made

Everything comes from the archive of official AEMET warnings that Climaviso has kept since June 2018: each day counts once, at the highest level the zone had. A warning is a forecast, not damage or a measurement, and it's issued for the whole zone, not your street. We don't cover measured temperatures or rainfall: only when, and why, a warning was issued.