Vietnam weather in December: cool north, dry south

December by place

The table uses the December mean temperature, rain total, and rain days for every place with a rainfall record. Ho Chi Minh City's temperature comes from the Japan Meteorological Agency's normals for its Tan Son Hoa station, which publish no rainfall normal, so the city has no rain figures here.

Sa Pa is the coolest row at 9.4°C. The southern places range from 25.7°C in the Mekong Delta to 26.8°C in Ho Chi Minh City.

The north is cool and dry

Hanoi records 20.2 mm and 5.2 rain days in December. Ha Long Bay records 18.1 mm and 5.2 rain days, the lowest rainfall total in the table. Ninh Binh records 28.6 mm and 6.3 rain days. Ha Giang is cooler than those lowland places at 16.9°C, with 42.2 mm and 8.3 rain days.

Sa Pa is colder still, but its 65.7 mm and 13.5 rain days show why a cool northern mountain visit needs a different rain reading from a city stay. The Sa Pa winter article adds fog and drizzle context.

This VTV weather bulletin (in Vietnamese) forecast thicker morning fog over the north in late December.

The central coast is still wet

December remains wet in central Vietnam. Hue records 349.9 mm and 20.2 rain days. Hoi An and Da Nang record 218.4 mm and 18.7 rain days. Quy Nhon records 205.5 mm and 19.1 rain days, while Nha Trang records 191.4 mm and 14.4 rain days.

Phong Nha's Dong Hoi station is lower at 125.1 mm and 14.2 rain days, but it is still wetter than the northern city rows. The central Vietnam in October article explains why the central coast needs its own seasonal reading.

The south is warm and relatively dry

The Mekong Delta has a December mean of 25.7°C, 41.5 mm, and 6.5 rain days. Con Dao is 26°C, 52.9 mm, and 5.5 rain days. Phu Quoc is 26.3°C, 59.1 mm, and 6.2 rain days.

Ho Chi Minh City has a December mean of 26.8°C in the JMA normals for Tan Son Hoa. Those normals have no rainfall column, so this article gives no December rain figure for the city.

The November comparison shows how the same regions looked one month earlier.

Highs, lows and sunshine in Vietnam weather in December

The same regulation gives the average daily high and low and the hours of sunshine for every place except Ho Chi Minh City.

The gap between day and night runs from 3.5 degrees at Con Dao to 8.2 degrees at Da Lat. Phu Quoc has 240.1 hours of sunshine, the Mekong Delta 215.3 and Da Lat 198.7, while Phong Nha's Dong Hoi station has 73.3 and Hue 76, the dullest rows in the table.

Is December drier than November?

Yes, at every one of the 14 places with a rainfall record. Hue falls from 641.7 mm in November to 349.9 mm in December, and Hoi An and Da Nang from 448.2 mm to 218.4 mm. In the south the drop is sharper: the Mekong Delta goes from 137.1 mm to 41.5 mm and Con Dao from 174.9 mm to 52.9 mm.

January is drier again at most places, including 129.3 mm in Hue and 10 mm in the Mekong Delta. Three northern places are the exception. Hanoi has 22.5 mm in January against 20.2 mm in December, Ha Long Bay 27.7 mm against 18.1 mm, and Sa Pa 70.2 mm against 65.7 mm, so December is the drier month there. Our January weather guide has the full table for that month.

Asked how to plan a month in Vietnam in December, one r/VietNam user wrote:

"I would plan December around weather first, then cut the list down hard. What helped me before was treating the north as cooler and moodier, central Vietnam as more weather-sensitive, and the south or Phu Quoc as the easier warm-weather finish."

u/LetterheadClassic306 on r/VietNam

Our take

For a beach in December, go south: Phu Quoc and the Mekong Delta are warm, have about 6 rain days and get the most sun in the table. Hanoi, Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh are dry too but cool, with highs near 22°C and lows near 15°C to 16°C, so pack a jacket. Leave Hue, Hoi An and Da Nang for later in the season if you can: Hue still averages about 350 mm of rain over some 20 wet days in December. These are station averages, not a forecast.

How we checked this

Every station figure comes from QCVN 02:2022/BXD, the Ministry of Construction's climate regulation, read from the PDF on 8 October 2026 and matched value by value for December, and for the November and January comparisons. Ho Chi Minh City's temperature comes from JMA ClimatView's normals for Tan Son Hoa, read the same day. We removed an earlier rain estimate for the city because it came from a climate model, not a station. Photo credits come from each file's Wikimedia Commons page.

What this does not tell you

The rows come from different stations. Sa Pa's station is 1,570 m and 2 km from its pin, while Hue's is 17 m and 4 km away. The table does not describe rain at every coast, valley, or hotel. Ho Chi Minh City has no rain row because its station normals publish none. The regulation does not state the observation period of its tables.

References

• QCVN 02:2022/BXD, National technical regulation on natural physical and climatic data for construction: https://datafiles.chinhphu.vn/cpp/files/vbpq/2022/10/02-bxd.pdf. Checked 2026-10-08.
• JMA ClimatView monthly normals, station 48900 Tan Son Hoa: https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/climatview/graph_mkhtml_nrm.php?n=48900&y=2026&m=8&e=7&r=1&s=1&k=0. Checked 2026-10-08.

Photo (cover): Thuy Vu Rhys / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Data checked: October 2026.