New York has four genuinely distinct seasons and two of them are hard work. It is a continental climate on a coastal city — hot, humid summers and cold, wind-driven winters, with two short and excellent transitional periods in between.
The short version: late April to mid-June and mid-September to early November are the best times to be there. Everything else has trade-offs worth knowing about.
Spring: April to June
April is unreliable. It can be fifteen degrees and beautiful or it can rain for a week. The trees come out in the second half of the month and Central Park is at its best. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s cherry blossom runs for about ten days somewhere in late April or early May and draws enormous crowds.
May is the best month in the city, or close to it. Warm without being humid, long evenings, everything outdoors reopening — the High Line planting, the rooftop bars, the outdoor seating, Smorgasburg in Williamsburg. Hotel prices reflect this.
June is warm and increasingly humid toward the end. Shakespeare in the Park starts, the free summer concert programmes begin, Pride at the end of the month is one of the largest in the world and takes over a large part of Manhattan for a weekend.
Summer: July to August
Hot and humid, regularly above 32°C with humidity that makes it feel considerably worse, and the subway platforms are brutal — the trains are air conditioned, the stations are not, and the difference is a shock.
What summer has going for it: it is the cheapest time to fly and often to stay, because a lot of New Yorkers leave and business travel drops. And the city puts on an extraordinary amount of free outdoor programming — free Shakespeare, free concerts in Central Park and Prospect Park, free films on the lawn in Bryant Park, free kayaking on the Hudson, and the beaches at Coney Island and the Rockaways.
Thunderstorms in the afternoon are common and heavy and clear quickly. Museums are the obvious refuge and are busy for that reason.
The 4th of July fireworks on the East River draw very large crowds. Late August is quiet, hot and cheap.
Autumn: September to November
September after Labor Day is the best month for weather. Warm days, cool evenings, low humidity. It is also the busiest and most expensive period of the year, because business travel returns, the UN General Assembly closes half of Midtown East, and everyone else has worked out that September is the best month.
October is the classic New York month: crisp, clear, the park turning colour from about the third week. The Village Halloween Parade on the 31st runs up Sixth Avenue and anyone in costume can join it.
November is colder and greyer but has two things: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the fourth Thursday, and the start of the Christmas season in the last week, when the Rockefeller Center tree goes up and the department store windows are unveiled. Hotel rates dip in the first half of the month.
Winter: December to March
December is expensive, crowded and, if you like Christmas, magical. The tree, the windows, the markets at Bryant Park and Union Square, the ice rinks, the lights. Midtown between Thanksgiving and New Year is genuinely difficult to walk through. Hotel prices peak in the middle of the month and then collapse immediately after New Year.
New Year’s Eve in Times Square means being penned into a barricaded block from early afternoon with no toilets and no way back in if you leave. People do it once.
January and February are the cheapest months by a wide margin and the coldest. Highs around 3 to 5°C, wind off the rivers, occasional snow that is beautiful for a day and grey slush for three. Museums are empty, restaurants have tables, hotels are half what they cost in October, and Restaurant Week in late January and again in the summer offers set menus at good restaurants for a fixed low price.
If you can handle cold, late January is the best value in the New York calendar and the city is at its least performative.
March is unpredictable and mostly unpleasant — grey, wet, and cold without being properly wintry. The St Patrick’s Day parade on the 17th is the largest in the world and Fifth Avenue closes for it.
What to pack, by season
Summer: light clothes, but bring a layer for the aggressively air-conditioned interiors, which are colder than the street. Rain jacket for the thunderstorms.
Winter: a proper coat, a hat, and gloves. The wind between the buildings on the avenues is the thing that catches people out, not the temperature.
Any season: shoes you have already worn in. Ten to twelve miles a day on pavement is a normal New York day and it is the single most common way visitors ruin a trip.
The one-line answer
If you can choose freely: the second half of September, or early October. If you want value: late January or early February. If you have children on school holidays and no choice: summer, with an indoor plan for every afternoon.