But “Bhutan weather” is a nearly meaningless phrase, and that’s the real point of this guide. On any given day in July, it is 32°C in Phuentsholing and 20°C in Phobjikha, three hours apart by road. Bhutan doesn’t have a climate. It has about six of them, stacked vertically.

Below is the actual monthly data for nine towns, and what each month genuinely feels like — the Bhutan climate zone by zone, real Bhutan temperature figures for every station, and what the four Bhutan seasons mean in practice.

	Months	Why
Best overall	Mid-Oct to mid-Nov	Clearest skies of the year, dry trails, big festivals
Flowers & festivals	March–April	Rhododendrons, Punakha jacaranda, Paro Tshechu
Cranes	Late Oct – February	Black-necked cranes in Phobjikha, and no other time
Cheapest, emptiest	Jun–Aug, Dec–Feb	Monsoon or cold; hotel and flight prices drop
Hardest to travel	July–August	Peak monsoon, landslides, cloud hiding the peaks

ut “Bhutan weather” is very nearly a meaningless phrase, and that is the real point of this guide. On any given day in July it is 32°C in Phuentsholing and 20°C in Phobjikha — three hours apart by road. Bhutan does not have a climate. It has about six of them, stacked vertically.

Below is the actual monthly data for nine towns and what each month genuinely feels like on the ground: the Bhutan climate zone by zone, real Bhutan temperature figures for every station, and what the four Bhutan seasons mean in practice rather than in a brochure.

First: why every Bhutan weather page gives different numbers

Before the tables, something worth knowing — because it explains why the figures you have already seen contradict one another.

While researching this guide we pulled monthly data from two widely-cited climate databases. They disagreed wildly. For Thimphu in July, one gave an average daily maximum of 15°C; the other gave 27°C. For annual rainfall in Thimphu, one summed to roughly 2,550 mm and the other stated 610 mm — a four-fold gap.

They cannot both be right, so rather than average them we checked which was internally coherent.

The one we rejected published identical rainfall figures for Thimphu (2,300 m) and Punakha (1,235 m) — two valleys a thousand metres apart in elevation and completely different in character. It also classified subtropical Punakha as an “oceanic” climate, and gave summer valleys a daily temperature range of about 5°C where real Himalayan valleys swing 10–12°C. Those are the fingerprints of an interpolated grid cell placed badly in mountainous terrain — a known weakness of gridded climate models wherever elevation changes fast.
The one we used published station-level tables that reconciled against their own stated annual averages, gave sensible elevation-appropriate values, and produced a clean south-to-north rainfall gradient.

Every number in this guide comes from a single source and nothing is blended between the two. Where a figure looks odd, we say so in the text rather than quietly smoothing it. Where our own sum of the twelve monthly values differs slightly from the published annual total — Thimphu’s months sum to 615 mm against a stated 610 mm, for instance — that is rounding in the monthly figures, and we print the published annual.

This matters practically. If you pack from a page quoting a 15°C July maximum in Thimphu, you will carry a winter coat through a warm, humid monsoon month and leave your rain shell at home. Gridded weather data is unreliable in the Himalaya, and most travel articles copy it without ever checking it against itself.

Bhutan climate: one country, six climates

Bhutan runs from about 200 m on the Indian border to 7,570 m at Gangkhar Puensum. That vertical range is why the Bhutan climate resists any single summary.

Zone	Elevation	Character
Southern foothills	200–1,500 m	Subtropical. Hot, humid, very wet. Spring highs on the plains reach 37–38°C
Inner Himalayan valleys	1,200–3,000 m	Temperate. Cold dry winters, warm rainy summers. Where you will spend your trip
High Himalaya	above 3,000 m	Alpine. Cold year-round, cool summer nights, perennial snow above ~5,000 m

The rainfall gradient is the real story

Annual precipitation across our nine stations, driest to wettest:

Station	Elevation	Annual Rainfall
Paro	2,200 m	565 mm
Thimphu	2,300 m	610 mm
Wangdue Phodrang	1,200 m	660 mm
Punakha	1,235 m	750 mm
Jakar (Bumthang)	2,470 m	750 mm
Ura (Bumthang)	3,100 m	1,350 mm
Gasa	2,760 m	1,800 mm
Phobjikha	2,860 m	2,175 mm
Phuentsholing	220 m	3,955 mm

Phuentsholing gets seven times the rain Paro does. The southern foothills take the full force of the monsoon as it slams into the Himalayan wall; by the time that air has crossed the first ridges and dropped its moisture, the inner valleys of Paro and Thimphu are comparatively dry — which is exactly why the two most-visited valleys in the country are also the driest.

The odd one out is Phobjikha at 2,175 mm — high, but sitting where monsoon air funnels in. It is the wettest valley most visitors will ever go to. It is also why the place is a marshland, and why the cranes like it.

Two rules that predict almost everything

Temperature falls roughly 7°C for every 1,000 m of elevation. Punakha at 1,235 m and Phobjikha at 2,860 m are a three-hour drive apart and about 11°C apart on any given day.
In spring and autumn the daily swing beats the seasonal one. Thimphu in March averages a 4°C low and a 19°C high — fifteen degrees inside a single day. This is why layers matter far more here than one warm coat.

Bhutan temperature by destination: the master tables

All figures are average daily minimum and maximum in °C, with monthly precipitation in millimetres. Annual rows are the published station averages.

Paro (2,200 m) — where you land

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain mm	Rain Days
Jan	−1	13	10	1
Feb	1	14	15	2
Mar	4	17	20	4
Apr	7	20	30	6
May	11	22	60	10
Jun	14	24	70	12
Jul	15	24	120	18
Aug	15	24	110	17
Sep	14	23	80	13
Oct	9	20	45	4
Nov	4	17	0	0
Dec	0	14	5	0
Year	7.7	19.5	565	87

Paro is the driest place you will visit. November records essentially no rain at all — zero millimetres across zero rain days. If your priority is dry trails and clean air, this table is the argument for November on its own.

Thimphu (2,300 m) — the capital

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain mm	Rain Days	Sun Hrs/Day
Jan	−2	15	5	1	8
Feb	0	17	10	1	8
Mar	4	19	20	4	8
Apr	8	22	30	6	8
May	12	25	50	9	7
Jun	15	27	100	14	6
Jul	16	27	155	19	5
Aug	16	27	120	17	5
Sep	15	26	75	12	6
Oct	9	24	45	5	8
Nov	3	20	0	0	8
Dec	−1	17	5	1	8
Year	7.9	22.1	610	89	2,580 total

Thimphu is the only Bhutanese station with published sunshine data, and the figure is striking: eight hours of sun a day for eight months of the year, falling to five at the peak of the monsoon. Bhutan’s dry season is genuinely, reliably bright — this is not a country where “dry season” means merely less rain.

Punakha (1,235 m) — the warm valley

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain MM
Jan	6	19	10
Feb	8	21	20
Mar	11	24	15
Apr	14	27	40
May	18	29	80
Jun	20	30	135
Jul	21	31	150
Aug	20	30	145
Sep	19	29	95
Oct	16	27	45
Nov	11	24	5
Dec	7	20	5
Year	14.3	25.9	750

Punakha reaches 19°C in January, while Thimphu manages 15°C and Phobjikha 9°C. This is why Punakha was the winter capital, why the central monk body still moves there for the cold months, and why we base almost every December–February itinerary on it rather than on Thimphu.

Wangdue Phodrang (1,200 m)

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain MM	Rain Days
Jan	5	19	5	1
Feb	8	21	5	1
Mar	11	24	20	4
Apr	14	27	40	7
May	18	28	65	9
Jun	20	30	105	12
Jul	21	29	145	17
Aug	21	29	135	16
Sep	20	28	90	12
Oct	15	27	45	5
Nov	10	24	5	1
Dec	6	21	5	0
Year	14.0	25.6	660	85

Effectively Punakha’s twin — same elevation, same shape of year, marginally drier. Useful mostly as a check on the Punakha figures: two neighbouring stations at the same altitude producing near-identical curves is what coherent station data looks like.

Phobjikha (2,860 m) — the crane valley

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain MM
Jan	-4	9	5
Feb	-3	11	10
Mar	0	13	90
Apr	3	16	185
May	7	18	265
Jun	10	20	260
Jul	11	20	495
Aug	11	20	510
Sep	10	19	205
Oct	6	17	105
Nov	0	13	35
Dec	-4	11	5
Year	4.0	15.5	2175

Note the July and August figures — 495 mm and 510 mm. Phobjikha in high monsoon receives more than three times Thimphu’s rainfall in the same month, and it is the single most common mismatch we see between what a visitor expects of a “highland valley” and what they get.

Bumthang: Jakar (2,470 m) and Ura (3,100 m)

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain MM
Jan	-4	9	5
Feb	-3	11	10
Mar	0	13	90
Apr	3	16	185
May	7	18	265
Jun	10	20	260
Jul	11	20	495
Aug	11	20	510
Sep	10	19	205
Oct	6	17	105
Nov	0	13	35
Dec	-4	11	5
Year	4.0	15.5	2175

And Ura, 630 m higher in the same district:

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain MM
Jan	-5	8	5
Feb	-4	8	15
Mar	1	11	40
Apr	3	13	165
May	6	16	150
Jun	9	18	200
Jul	10	19	340
Aug	11	19	230
Sep	9	18	135
Oct	3	15	65
Nov	-2	12	5
Dec	-5	10	0
Year	3.0	13.9	1350

Ura runs 3–4°C colder than Jakar with nearly twice the rainfall, and the two are an hour apart. Even inside a single district, elevation decides everything. If an itinerary has you sleeping at Ura in April, pack for a different month than the one Jakar’s numbers suggest.

Phuentsholing (220 m) — the border town

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain MM
Jan	13	24	15
Feb	16	27	30
Mar	18	30	80
Apr	20	31	215
May	22	32	380
Jun	23	32	805
Jul	24	32	965
Aug	24	32	780
Sep	23	32	495
Oct	21	31	165
Nov	18	29	15
Dec	15	25	10
Year	19.8	29.8	3955

Nearly a metre of rain falls here in July alone. If you are entering overland from India you begin your trip in this, and climb out of it within a few hours — a 1,980 m ascent that drops the temperature by about 14°C between breakfast and lunch. Our overland route guide covers that drive in detail.

Gasa (2,760 m) — hot springs and trek gateway

Month	Min °C	Max °C	Rain mm
Jan	-1	6	20
Feb	-1	10	25
Mar	3	10	95
Apr	6	13	115
May	8	16	175
Jun	11	18	310
Jul	12	20	370
Aug	12	21	330
Sep	11	21	200
Oct	9	20	115
Nov	2	18	35
Dec	0	13	10
Year	6.1	15.4	1800

One caveat we are printing rather than hiding. Gasa’s January-to-March maxima — 6, 10, 10 — have an unusual shape for a station at this elevation. The figures reconcile against the source’s own stated annual average and we re-checked them, so they are printed as published. We would treat Gasa’s individual winter months as indicative rather than precise.

The same day, nine places

This is the table that makes the whole point. Average daily minimum and maximum, in the same month, at nine stations:

Station	Elevation	January	July
Phuentsholing	220 m	13 / 24	24 / 32
Punakha	1,235 m	6 / 19	21 / 31
Wangdue	1,200 m	5 / 19	21 / 29
Paro	2,200 m	−1 / 13	15 / 24
Thimphu	2,300 m	−2 / 15	16 / 27
Jakar	2,470 m	−4 / 11	14 / 23
Gasa	2,760 m	−1 / 6	12 / 20
Phobjikha	2,860 m	−4 / 9	11 / 20
Ura	3,100 m	−5 / 8	10 / 19

In January there is a 22-degree spread between Phuentsholing and Ura. In July, thirteen degrees. Any article that gives you one Bhutan temperature for a month is telling you almost nothing about the day you will actually have.

Microclimate pairs: how to use the vertical map

Because the temperature gradient is so steep and the roads so short, you can change season by driving for three hours. We use this constantly when building itineraries, and almost nobody plans around it.

Dec–Feb

Thimphu is cold. Punakha is not.

Thimphu −2/15, Punakha 6/19, seventy-one kilometres apart. In deep winter we shift nights out of Thimphu and into Punakha wherever the itinerary allows — you sightsee in the capital by day and sleep somewhere that does not need a stove.

May–Jun

Punakha is hot. Phobjikha is not.

Punakha 18/29 in May and genuinely humid; Phobjikha 7/18, three hours away. In late spring the same pair works in reverse — go up for the nights, come down for the dzong.

Jul–Aug

Everything is wet, but not equally.

Paro takes 120 mm in July; Phobjikha takes 495 mm and Phuentsholing 965 mm. A monsoon trip built around Paro, Thimphu and Punakha is a genuinely different experience from one that pushes into the highlands or the south.

Any month

The southern descent.

Dropping from Trongsa (2,200 m) to Gelephu (250 m) crosses more habitat and climate bands in one day than most countries contain. It is the reason Bhutan has 700-plus bird species, and it is a real day of travel — pack for two climates.

Bhutan seasons: what the four actually mean

Spring—March to May

Temperatures climb fast. Rhododendrons flower on the passes from late March; jacarandas turn Punakha purple through April. Rain increases across the season — Paro goes from 20 mm in March to 60 mm in May — and even before the true monsoon arrives, May rain is already substantial.

Verdict: superb in March and April, noticeably wetter by mid-May.

Monsoon — roughly May to mid-October

The heaviest months everywhere are July and August. The problem for visitors is less the rain itself than the cloud: in summer the sky is often overcast, with cloud lying directly on the mountain slopes and hiding the peaks entirely for days at a time. Roads turn to mud and landslides close highways.

Verdict: cheapest, greenest, emptiest — and you may not see a mountain.

Autumn — mid-September to November

The monsoon withdraws, the air scrubs clean, and Bhutan delivers the views it is famous for. Thimphu’s sunshine climbs back to eight hours a day in October. Paro records zero rain days in November. The big tshechus fall in this window.

Verdict: the best time to be in Bhutan, and everyone knows it — book early.

Winter — December to February

Dry, bright and cold. Nights below freezing above 2,400 m; days pleasant in direct sun. Snow falls at altitude and can block some passes. The high valleys empty out and Punakha becomes the obvious base.

Verdict: underrated. Clear skies, no crowds, lower prices, and the cranes.

Bhutan weather month by month

Jan

Coldest, driest, brightest. Paro −1/13 · Thimphu −2/15 · Punakha 6/19 · Phobjikha −4/9. Almost no rain — 5–15 mm across the valleys — and eight hours of sun a day in Thimphu. Hard frosts, snow possible on the passes. Good for: cranes, empty dzongs, crisp mountain views, low prices. Hard: freezing nights, limited hotel heating, some high passes snowbound.

Feb

Winter loosens. Paro 1/14 · Thimphu 0/17 · Punakha 8/21 · Phobjikha −3/11. Still dry at 10–30 mm and still cold at night, but daytime warmth returns. Punakha Drubchen and Tshechu usually fall late February or March. Cranes begin leaving. The sweet spot of winter — warmer than January, still empty.

Mar

Spring arrives. Paro 4/17 · Thimphu 4/19 · Punakha 11/24 · Phobjikha 0/13. Rain still light in the western valleys at 15–20 mm, though Phobjikha jumps to 90 mm. Rhododendrons start. Paro Tshechu typically falls late March or early April. One of the two best months — book far ahead if a tshechu lands in it.

Apr

The flower month. Paro 7/20 · Thimphu 8/22 · Punakha 14/27 · Phobjikha 3/16. Warm days, comfortable nights, jacarandas at Punakha Dzong, rhododendrons on the passes. Rain building — 30 mm in Paro but 185 mm in Phobjikha. The prettiest month in Bhutan.

May

Warm, and getting wet. Paro 11/22 · Thimphu 12/25 · Punakha 18/29 · Phobjikha 7/18. Pre-monsoon rain is significant. Paro 60 mm, Phobjikha 265 mm. Afternoon cloud builds daily and Punakha becomes genuinely hot. A good month with a wet edge — aim for early May.

Jun

Monsoon onset. Paro 14/24 · Thimphu 15/27 · Punakha 20/30 · Phuentsholing 23/32. Rain accelerates hard — Thimphu 100 mm, Phuentsholing 805 mm. Sunshine drops to six hours. Cloud starts hiding the peaks; leeches appear on lower trails. The value starts here, and so does the risk.

Jul

The wettest month. Paro 15/24 · Thimphu 16/27 · Punakha 21/31 · Phuentsholing 24/32. Peak monsoon. Thimphu 155 mm across 19 rain days, Phobjikha 495 mm, Phuentsholing 965 mm. Sunshine at its annual low of five hours. Landslides, flight delays, obscured mountains. The hardest month to travel.

Aug

Still monsoon, slightly easing. Paro 15/24 · Thimphu 16/27 · Phobjikha 11/20 · Phuentsholing 24/32. Marginally drier than July in most places — though Phobjikha peaks in August at 510 mm. Warm, humid, spectacularly green. Late August starts to improve.

Sep

The turn. Paro 14/23 · Thimphu 15/26 · Punakha 19/29 · Phobjikha 10/19. Rain drops sharply — Thimphu to 75 mm, Phobjikha to 205 mm — and sun returns to six hours. By the last week the skies usually clear properly. Thimphu Tshechu normally falls in late September. A gamble early, excellent late.

Oct

The best month. Paro 9/20 · Thimphu 9/24 · Punakha 16/27 · Phobjikha 6/17. Dry — Paro 45 mm across just four rain days — eight hours of sun a day, air washed clean. Cranes begin arriving in Phobjikha late in the month. The best all-round month, and the busiest: book five to six months ahead.

Nov

Driest and clearest. Paro 4/17 · Thimphu 3/20 · Punakha 11/24 · Phobjikha 0/13. Paro and Thimphu both record zero rainfall and zero rain days. Eight hours of sun, nights turning cold. Cranes settled; the Crane Festival is on 11 November, Jambay Lhakhang Drup in Bumthang. The sharpest mountain views of the year — our pick.

Dec

Winter returns. Paro 0/14 · Thimphu −1/17 · Punakha 7/20 · Phobjikha −4/11. Very dry at 5 mm or less in most valleys, very bright, cold at night, snow possible at altitude. Excellent value, and a lovely month if you don't mind the cold.

The one-glance planner

Not “which month is nicest”, but which things are actually available when. This is the table we work from internally.

Month	Cranes	High Trek	Himalaya From Dochula	Flowers	Major Festival
Jan	Yes	No	Excellent	—	—
Feb	Ending	No	Excellent	—	Punakha Drubchen
Mar	No	Jomolhari opens	Good	Rhododendron	Paro Tshechu
Apr	No	Yes	Unreliable	Jacaranda, rhododendron	Ura Yakchoe
May	No	Yes, wet	Poor	Late rhododendron	—
Jun	No	No	Poor	—	—
Jul	No	No	Very poor	—	Haa Summer
Aug	No	No	Very poor	—	—
Sep	No	From mid- month	Improving	—	Thimphu Tshechu
Oct	From late Oct	Peak	Excellent	—	Royal Highland
Nov	Yes	Yes	Excellent	—	C rane Festival, Jambay Drup
Dec	Yes	No	Excellent	—	—

Sunshine and mountain views

The single most useful statistic for planning is Thimphu’s sunshine curve: eight hours a day from October through April, dropping to five in July and August. That is the whole trip in one line. In the dry season you get consistently bright mornings and reliable mountain views; in the monsoon you get cloud sitting on the slopes.

Two rules that hold in every month. First, mornings are clearer than afternoons — valley cloud builds through the day in almost every season, which is why we start Tiger’s Nest, Dochula and Chele La early rather than because of crowds. Second, the Himalaya from Dochula is a dry-season phenomenon: the full eastern range including Gangkhar Puensum shows on clear October-to-February mornings, and essentially never in July.

What we actually change, by month

This is the part that does not appear on weather pages, because it only comes from running trips. Same country, same sights — different itinerary shape.

December to February — we move the beds, not the sights. Nights in Punakha (6/19) rather than Thimphu (−2/15) wherever the routing allows, and we ask hotels in advance which rooms have working bukhari stoves. Chele La goes on the itinerary as a “weather permitting” line, not a fixed morning.
March and April — we book around the tshechu, then everything else. Festival dates move with the lunar calendar and Paro fills completely. We fix those nights first and build the rest of the route outward from them.
May — we start earlier each day. Afternoon build-up is reliable enough by mid-May that a 07:30 start and a 15:00 finish sees more than a 09:00 start and a 17:00 one.
June to August — we add a buffer night before any international flight, without exception, and we keep the itinerary inside the western valleys unless the guest specifically wants the east. We also stop promising mountain views entirely, in writing.
Late September — we treat the first ten days as monsoon and the last ten as autumn, and price and plan accordingly. The turn is real but it is not on a fixed date.
October and November — we book six months out or we say no. There is no honest way to deliver a good October trip arranged in August; the hotels that are left are the ones nobody wanted.

The thing we say most often. Guests ask us to confirm they will see the Himalaya. Between October and February we say yes with reasonable confidence and start you early. Between June and August we say no, and we would rather lose the booking than have you fly across the world expecting a view that the sunshine data says arrives five hours a day through cloud. If an operator promises you mountain views in July, that is a sales answer, not a weather answer.

What the numbers don't tell you

Indoor temperature is the real winter problem. A 15°C afternoon in Thimphu is pleasant; the same building at 21:00 with no central heating is not. Most Bhutanese hotels warm rooms with a wood-burning bukhari or an electric heater, not with central heating. Ask, before you book a January trip, what heating the rooms actually have.
Dzongs and temples are colder than outside. Thick rammed-earth walls, stone floors, no heating, and your shoes off. A sunny 17°C day is a 10°C interior, and you will be in there for an hour.
Rain days matter more than millimetres. Paro’s 120 mm in July across 18 rain days is a different holiday from the same 120 mm falling in three storms. Look at the rain-days column, not just the total.
Paro’s airport is visual-approach only. There is no instrument approach; pilots fly the valley by sight. Cloud means delay or cancellation, and June to August that is routine rather than exceptional. Our flights guide covers what that means for connections.
Landslides close roads for hours, not weeks. The realistic monsoon risk is losing half a day, not being stranded — but half a day out of a five-day itinerary is a full sight.
The sun at altitude is stronger than the temperature suggests. At 3,000 m a 16°C day burns. Sunscreen and a hat belong in your bag in January as much as in June.

What to pack, by season

Layers, in every month. The daily swing beats the seasonal difference almost everywhere.

Spring & autumn:

long-sleeved shirts, fleece, packable down jacket, light shell, sun protection.

Monsoon:

quick-dry trousers, a proper waterproof, spare footwear, dry bags, insect repellent.

Winter:

thermals, insulated jacket, hat and gloves, warm sleepwear, and microspikes if you plan to hike.

Every month:

collared long-sleeve top and long trousers for temples, sunscreen, and one warm layer regardless of forecast.

Full detail — including the collar-and-sleeve rule that applies inside every dzong whatever the weather — is in our what to wear in Bhutan guide.

A note on a changing climate

Bhutan’s weather is not static. Himalayan glaciers are retreating, and meltwater pooling behind unstable moraine dams has made glacial lake outburst floods a recognised national hazard — research published in 2026 assessed 278 glacial lakes in Bhutan and classified one as very high hazard and five as high hazard.

For a normal cultural itinerary this changes nothing at all. For high-valley trekking it is a reason to travel with a licensed operator who monitors conditions and knows which valleys are being watched. We cover it properly in our Bhutan safety guide.

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

How many seasons does Bhutan have?

Four. The Bhutan seasons are spring (March–May), monsoon (roughly May to mid-October), autumn (mid-September to November) and winter (December–February). They overlap because the monsoon’s arrival and withdrawal shift year to year, and because elevation changes what each one feels like.

What is the best month to visit Bhutan?

October and November for the clearest skies and driest trails — Paro records zero rain days in November — or March and April for rhododendrons, jacarandas and Paro Tshechu. Late September is also excellent once the monsoon withdraws.

What is the weather like in Bhutan by month?

It depends far more on where you are than when. In January, Phuentsholing averages 13–24°C while Ura at 3,100 m averages −5 to 8°C. In the main valleys, expect roughly −2 to 17°C in winter, 4–22°C in spring, 15–27°C in the monsoon and 3–24°C in autumn.

When is the monsoon in Bhutan?

Roughly May to mid-October, with July and August the wettest. Thimphu gets 155 mm in July across 19 rain days; Phuentsholing gets 965 mm. Sunshine falls from eight hours a day to five

How cold does Bhutan get in winter?

In the main valleys, nights fall to about −2°C in Thimphu and −1°C in Paro, with daytime highs of 13–17°C in the sun. Higher up it’s colder: Phobjikha averages −4°C at night in January and Ura −5°C. Punakha at 1,235 m stays mild, reaching 19°C.

Does it snow in Bhutan?

Yes, at altitude. Winter is mostly dry and sunny in the valleys, but snow falls higher up and can block some passes. Snow is perennial above roughly 5,000 m.

Bhutan’s weather is decided by altitude first and calendar second. Learn the vertical map — Punakha warm and low, Paro and Thimphu temperate, Phobjikha and Bumthang cold and high, Phuentsholing subtropical and drenched — and every month in the tables above stops being a number and starts being a decision.

If you want one answer: go in the second half of October or in November. Eight hours of sun a day, effectively no rain in Paro or Thimphu, the cleanest air of the year, the cranes arriving in Phobjikha, and the whole eastern Himalaya visible from Dochula on a clear morning.

If those months do not work, March and April are nearly as good and considerably prettier. And if your only window is the monsoon, come anyway — just book a buffer night, expect to lose half a day somewhere, and treat any mountain view as a bonus rather than a plan.

Tell us your month and we'll tell you the truth about it

We will say plainly what your dates will and won’t deliver — mountain views, cranes, trekking, festivals — and build the itinerary around the weather rather than against it. That includes telling you when a month is a poor choice for what you want, and what to move.