St. John weather and forecast

The best time to visit St. John is February or March: the driest weeks on NOAA's 1991 to 2020 record, at the year's highest rates. The cheapest is August to October, which also holds nearly every hurricane that has come close. Today's St. John island weather forecast is the reading above; below it, the record month by month and what each costs.

How St. John's year works

There is no month that suits everyone, because the three things that change on St. John move together. The island has no cold season: the afternoon high at the airport station across Pillsbury Sound runs from 84 degrees in January to 90 in July, and the night never drops below the low seventies. What moves across the year is rain, the temperature of the sea and the chance of a storm, and the wet months are the warm-water months are the storm months. The driest weather costs the most, and the cheapest weeks carry the season's risk.

The trade winds blow from the east for most of the year, and they are why an 88 degree afternoon on a deck that faces them is comfortable while the same reading in a valley is not. A villa that catches the wind is a different house from one that does not, which is worth asking an owner before you ask about the pool.

The villa calendar follows the weather with a lag. On the rate cards here, as of October 2026, high season runs from early January to mid-April, the holiday fortnight is priced above it, and everything from mid-April to mid-December is low season at one rate. The last column of the table above shows that shape for the villas listed on this site, with the cheapest month set at 100.

December: the holiday fortnight

December is two months in one: the first half is dry-season weather at the low-season rate, the second half the busiest fortnight of the year. The rain that soaked November falls to 2.9 inches over eight wet days, the high settles at 85, and the sea is still 82 after the summer. The trade winds pick up.

On the rate cards here, as of October 2026, the holiday period begins around December 15 and asks a minimum of seven nights; before that date the same house is at its low-season rate. If your dates can move, the first half of December is the cheapest dry weather on the calendar.

One tropical system has passed within 100 km of the island in December in 34 seasons, and it was not a hurricane. Suits a family tied to the school holidays, who should book the house a year out, and anyone else who can take the first two weeks instead.

January to March: the dry season

These are the months with the surest weather, and they cost the most. February and March are the driest on the record at 1.9 inches each, on five wet days or fewer, with highs of 84 and 85 and nights of 74. January is a shade wetter at 2.6 inches and the coolest month of the year, which on St. John means a light layer on the deck after dark and nothing more.

The sea is at its coolest too, 80 degrees off Cruz Bay in February, which is still warmer than most of the Atlantic coast in August. The winter trades can push swell onto the North Shore beaches for a day or two at a time; the beach pages say which bays are sheltered.

No tropical system has come within 100 km of St. John in these three months in the 34 seasons on record. Rates are at their high-season level and availability is tightest over spring break, so the house is booked first and the car second, months ahead. Suits anyone whose dates are fixed and whose first question is whether it will rain: on this record, it mostly will not.

April and May: the shoulder

Late April and May are the winter's weather at the summer's price. April keeps most of the dry season, 86 degrees and 2.2 inches of rain, and on the rate cards here high season ends in the middle of the month. May is warmer at 87, the sea climbs to 83, and the rain returns to 3.0 inches over six wet days.

Nothing in the storm record touches either month. Suits a family that can travel outside the school calendar, and a couple who want the dry season's beaches at the low-season rate.

June and July: hot, cheap and mostly dry

June and July carry the hurricane season's name and almost none of its record. The season opens on June 1, and June is one of the drier months, 2.4 inches over five wet days, with highs of 89 and the sea at 84. July is the hottest month with August at 90 degrees, and its 2.9 inches fall on seven days.

In 34 seasons one tropical system has passed within 100 km of St. John in these two months, Hurricane Bertha in July 1996. The National Hurricane Center's climatology puts the first hurricane of an average season in early to mid-August, and most of the season's activity between mid-August and mid-October.

The island is quiet and the villas are at their low-season rate. The tradeoff is heat and humidity, which the sea and a house that faces the wind take care of, and a small chance of a storm, which travel insurance takes care of if you buy it before a storm has a name. Suits anyone who wants the beaches with room on them and can live with 90 degrees.

August to October: the storm months

This is where the season's risk lives, and where the lowest rates are. Of the 19 tropical systems that passed within 100 km of St. John in the 34 seasons from 1991 to 2024, 16 came in August, September and October, as did 8 of the 10 that were hurricanes at the time. The National Hurricane Center puts the peak of the Atlantic season at September 10. Irma passed on September 6, 2017, a Category 5 whose winds the NOAA Hurricane Hunters had measured at 185 mph the morning before, per the National Weather Service in San Juan, and Maria followed on September 20.

The weather on an ordinary day is the summer's. Highs of 90 in August and the sea at 86 by September, the warmest of the year. Rain rises from 4.4 inches in August to 5.9 in September, and October has the most wet days of the three at ten, which still leaves twenty dry ones. Most days in these months are beach days.

The odds on any single week are still small: in 25 of those 34 seasons no hurricane came within 100 km of the island at all. What changes is the need to plan for the other nine. Insurance bought before a storm is named, a house whose owner will tell you plainly what happens if one is, and flights you can move. Suits a couple on a budget who can book late and move their dates, not a wedding party. The hurricane season page has the rest.

November: the wettest month, then the turn

November is the wettest month on the record and the last of the low-season rate. The airport station measures 6.1 inches over ten wet days, and the Coral Bay gauge on the east end of St. John measures more, 7.2. Highs ease to 87 and the sea to 84.

The storm record shows one late system, Hurricane Lenny in November 1999, which crossed the Caribbean from the west, the wrong direction for the season. It is the only one. The season closes on November 30 by the National Hurricane Center's calendar, and the rate cards here stay at low season until mid-December. Suits a reader who wants December's weather a few weeks early at the low-season rate and will take more wet afternoons for it.

What the rain is actually like

The wet season is more rain on a few more days, not rainy weeks. A wet day in NOAA's count is any day with a tenth of an inch or more, and even November, the wettest month, has twenty dry ones. The difference between March and November is the difference between four wet days and ten. November's 6.1 inches over those ten days is six tenths of an inch per wet day, a shower's worth, not a washout; a day lost to rain from morning to night is what a tropical system brings.

Where you stay matters. The airport station across the sound and the Coral Bay gauge disagree by an inch or more in the wet months, and Coral Bay is the wetter: 4.5 inches in December against the airport's 2.9. The east end is greener for a reason, and the North Shore and the hills above Cruz Bay sit between the two.

Choosing your month

For the surest weather, February or March: the driest record, the coolest nights, no storms and the highest rates. For the winter's weather at a lower price, the first half of December or late April into May. For the island to yourselves with a small and insurable risk, June and July. For the lowest rates and the emptiest beaches, and the season's real risk with them, August to October, with insurance bought at the deposit and dates you can move.

Whichever month, the reading at the top of this page is today's sky over Cruz Bay, the table is the record behind it, and the rate index is what the villas listed here ask for the week. The next choice in the plan is where on the island to stay, and the hurricane season page says what to buy before you pay a deposit.

Every system at hurricane strength whose track came within 100 km of the island since 1989, from the National Hurricane Center’s best-track record. The distance is the closest point of the track; the wind is the sustained wind at that point.

Featured villas on St. John