Planning · when to go

Best time to visit Delhi, month by month

October – March. Warm days and cold nights, and the festival calendar — Republic Day on 26 January, the Qutub Festival's music in the complex when Delhi Tourism runs it, Amrit Udyan's gardens opening in February. The honest caveat is air: from Diwali to mid-January Delhi's smog can be severe; carry masks for children and expect hazy photographs. Our pick: February — clean skies after the winter smog, cool mornings, the Rashtrapati Bhavan gardens open, and the light on sandstone at its kindest.

The season, honestly

October to March is the season — warm afternoons, cold December and January nights, and fog on six or seven mornings a month in midwinter. The catch is the smog: from Diwali to mid-January the air can be severe, the light hazy, the distance lost. April to June is a furnace; the monsoon (end of June to the third week of September) brings heavy bursts and humidity.

October to March

Oct: 33° / 20° — season opens; Diwali smog at the end

Nov: 28° / 13° — golden light, worst air of the year

Dec: 23° / 8° — cold, foggy mornings; clear afternoons

Jan: 21° / 7° — cold nights, foggy mornings — Republic Day month

Feb: 24° / 10° — clean skies, Amrit Udyan open — the pick

Mar: 30° / 15° — warm and clear; Holi

April to September

Apr: 36° / 22° — hot — monuments by 9am

May: 40° / 26° — fierce heat; dust storms

Jun: 39° / 28° — peak heat, first storms

Jul: 35° / 27° — monsoon — heavy bursts, humid

Aug: 33° / 26° — wettest month

Sep: 34° / 24° — monsoon withdraws by the third week

If you can only come in the heat

Start at opening, be back indoors by eleven, and go out again an hour before sunset. Humayun's Tomb at 8am in May is emptier and better than at noon in December — the city's rhythm is the desert's, and it rewards anyone who keeps it.

Keep going

Delhi in one day — the order that works →Two days in Delhi →Where to stay in Delhi — the areas compared →Things to do in Delhi, ranked →Delhi, the Seven Cities — the full guide →The Delhi Shot List — twelve frames →

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