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Lhasa has a subtropical highland climate.
Hot, wet summers and cool, dry winters — here's what that means in plain terms.
What this climate feels like
The four things a regular visitor actually wants to know:
Highs near 23°C in July.
Lows near −7°C in January. About 138 freezing nights a year.
About 487 mm of rain a year. Wettest in July.
A roughly even mix of sun and cloud.
What "subtropical highland" means
Climate scientists sort every place on Earth into about 30 climate types, based on how hot, cold, wet and dry it is across the year. Lhasa's type — subtropical highland — sits in the broad family of mild, temperate climates.
Researchers write climate types as a short letter code. Here is what each letter means:
Cities with the same climate as Lhasa
A subtropical highland climate (Cwb) — these recognizable cities share it. If you know one of them, you know roughly what to expect.
Lhasa sits near a climate boundary
This city's climate sits within about 0.6 °C of the next type along. A slightly cooler or warmer decade could change which side of the boundary it lands on — but the lived weather doesn't change at the line.
Has Lhasa's climate type changed?
A climate type is a coarse bucket. It can hold steady for years while the weather inside it shifts — or tip into the next bucket.
What this climate means for you
Coffee, avocado, flowers, citrus, temperate vegetables — all thrive at altitude. A long, gentle growing season.
Year-round travel weather; the dry winter is the cleanest, sunniest window for outdoor activity.
Often described as 'eternal spring' — mild days, cool nights, sunny dry winters. Heating is light; AC unnecessary.
Where these numbers come from
The climate type and the month-by-month figures on this page are computed from Lhasa's measured 30-year climate normals (1991–2020) — the same official records behind Lhasa's main climate page, so the two always agree.
Long-range climate maps measure things slightly differently and can place a city in a neighbouring category. Where they differ, this page uses the measured station record as the climate today.
Methodology & sources
Temperature & precipitation — 1991–2020 normals computed from 25 years of daily observations at Lhasa, a weather station, about 4 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.