Ostuni Climate Patterns

Ostuni has a Mediterranean climate improved by its position — high enough to catch the wind, close enough to the sea to be moderated by it.

Summer

July and August are hot, with highs generally between 30 and 33°C, and effectively rainless. The hill is the advantage: a sea breeze reaches the old town most afternoons and evenings, so it is consistently more comfortable than the coastal plain below or the interior behind. The white walls, which reflect rather than absorb, are doing real work.

Winter

Mild and short. January highs run around 13°C, frost is occasional on the hill and rare on the plain, and snow is an event that happens perhaps once a decade. Winter is grey more often than cold.

Rain

Around 600 millimetres a year, almost all between October and March, often as heavy short storms. There is no surface water to speak of; the rock takes it all.

The wind

Two winds matter. The tramontana off the Balkans arrives cold and clear and can make a bright winter day feel far colder than the reading; the scirocco from Africa brings humid heat and fine reddish dust that settles on the white walls and is promptly washed off again.

Spring and autumn

The best of the year by a distance. April and May are green and full of flowers before the burn-off; September and October are warm, the sea is still swimmable and the olive harvest begins in late autumn.

Light

Worth mentioning on its own: a white town under a low sun is a different thing from a white town at noon, and the hour after dawn and before dusk is when Ostuni looks like its photographs.