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Weather extremes

How extreme does Anuradhapura's weather get?

The hottest, coldest, wettest and snowiest days Anuradhapura has recorded — the outer limits of what its weather can do, and how far they sit beyond a normal day.

Based on 34 years of daily weather observations (1991–present), from the Anuradhapura station 2 km away. Updated through August 2025 — an all-time extreme only changes when a more extreme day actually occurs, so some dates are old. That is normal, not stale data.

The four kinds of extreme

The hottest, coldest, wettest and snowiest single days Anuradhapura has recorded — each shown against what a normal day that time of year looks like.

🔥 Hottest day
104°F May 2, 2024

That is about 11°F hotter than a normal May afternoon in Anuradhapura (typical high near 92°F).

The three most extreme on record

1 104°F May 2, 2024recent
2 104°F Jul 5, 2014
3 103°F May 4, 2017
❄️ Coldest night
55°F Feb 7, 1995

About 17°F colder than a normal February night in Anuradhapura (typical low near 72°F).

The three most extreme on record

1 55°F Feb 7, 1995
2 58°F Dec 18, 2007
3 59°F May 10, 2017
🌧️ Most rain in one day
7.89 in May 17, 2016

The three most extreme on record

1 7.89 in May 17, 2016
2 7.00 in Jan 8, 2013
3 6.93 in Dec 20, 2014

How hot and cold it gets, month by month

The shaded band is the normal range of daily temperatures for each month. The dots show the most extreme it has ever been — so you can see how far beyond a normal day the records really sit.

30°50°70°90°110°130° all-time high 104°F JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
normal range of daily temperatureshottest ever recordedcoldest ever recorded

Anuradhapura's record heat sits well above even a hot day for the season — May's 104°F is about 11°F beyond a normal hot afternoon. Its record cold is just as far below a normal winter night — the dots mark how rare each extreme really is.

In plain terms

In a normal year, Anuradhapura's warmest days reach the mid-90s°F and its coldest nights drop to the low 70s°F. But across the record it has gone as high as 104°F and as low as 55°F. A single day has delivered over 8 inches of rain. Those are the outer edges worth knowing if you are moving here, planning a trip, or thinking about a house.
Methodology & sources

Temperature — modelled for this location from ERA5-Land reanalysis, a ~9 km global grid, because no long-record weather station is close enough to use.

Precipitation — 1991–2020 normals computed from 11 years of daily observations at China Bay, a weather station, about 88 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →