Bhutan town by town · southern border, 293 m
Phuentsholing weather
The short answer
Phuentsholing sits at 293 m on Bhutan’s southern border with India and is the country’s subtropical extreme. July alone brings more rain here than Thimphu receives in a whole year. It is hot and humid from April to October and pleasantly warm from November to February.
- elevation
- 293 m
- warmest day · May
- 32°
- coldest night · January
- 13°
- rain per year
- 3,953 mm
The valley
What Phuentsholing is actually like
Phuentsholing is the overland entry point, and it is the proof of the claim the rest of this site keeps making: that Bhutan holds three climates within a single day’s drive. Nothing about this town’s weather resembles the valleys four hours north.
Most visitors experience it as a transit stop rather than a destination, which makes the road out of it the practical concern. The highway climbing north is the most landslide-prone stretch in the country during the monsoon.
Month by month
Phuentsholing weather, month by month
Daily high °C Nightly low °C Rainfall mm
| Month | High °C | Low °C | Rain mm | Rain days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 23.9 | 13.4 | 17 | — |
| February | 26.6 | 16.3 | 31 | — |
| March | 29.8 | 18.5 | 80 | — |
| April | 31.1 | 20.1 | 217 | — |
| May | 32.3 | 21.7 | 380 | — |
| June | 32.3 | 23.1 | 807 | — |
| July | 31.9 | 23.7 | 963 | — |
| August | 32.3 | 23.8 | 779 | — |
| September | 31.7 | 23.1 | 493 | — |
| October | 31.2 | 21.1 | 163 | — |
| November | 28.7 | 17.9 | 13 | — |
| December | 25.4 | 15 | 10 | — |
Station climate normals for Phuentsholing from the NCHM Climate Data Book of Bhutan 2018 (1996–2018 station normals). Rain-day counts are not published for every station — see sources & method. The wettest month here is July, at 963 mm.
The rainfall column here is unlike anything else on the site. The wettest single month at this station delivers more than the entire annual total for the western valleys, and the yearly figure runs several times Thimphu’s.
Temperatures behave like the plains rather than the Himalaya: hot and humid through the long April-to-October stretch, with the pleasant window falling in what the rest of Bhutan calls deep winter.
When to come
The best time to visit Phuentsholing
November to February is comfortable here and is also when the road north is at its most dependable. If you are crossing overland, this is the season that makes it easy.
Between June and September, treat the drive north as the weather risk rather than the town: allow buffer time, and expect the highway to be the part of the itinerary the monsoon actually touches.
Live conditions for Phuentsholing and the other five towns are on the Bhutan forecast page, updated hourly. For the country-wide comparison see best time to visit Bhutan, or read Monsoon & rainfall.
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