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Sun Valley has a mediterranean-influenced warm-summer humid continental climate.
Warm summers and long, cold winters with snow. Rain in every month — 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 27°C in July. About 3 days a year above 32 °C.
Lows near −14°C in January. About 220 freezing nights a year.
About 429 mm of rain a year, plus 261 cm of snow. Snow falls through the winter months.
A roughly even mix of sun and cloud.
What "mediterranean-influenced warm-summer humid continental" 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. Sun Valley's type — mediterranean-influenced warm-summer humid continental — sits in the broad family of four-season continental climates.
Researchers write climate types as a short letter code. Here is what each letter means:
Cities with the same climate as Sun Valley
A mediterranean-influenced warm-summer humid continental climate (Dsb) — these recognizable cities share it. If you know one of them, you know roughly what to expect.
Sun Valley sits near a climate boundary
This city sits right on the line between mediterranean-influenced warm-summer humid continental and the next type along. Different climate maps file it on different sides of that line; the lived weather doesn't change at the line — it's a naming boundary, not a wall.
Has Sun Valley'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
Hardy fruit, vegetables with irrigation, stone fruit. Cool nights even in summer.
Summer is the dry, pleasant window; winters are cold and snowy.
Cold snowy winters, warm dry summers — a continental Med-influenced climate at altitude.
Where these numbers come from
The climate type and the month-by-month figures on this page are computed from Sun Valley's measured 30-year climate normals (1991–2020) — the same official records behind Sun Valley'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 29 years of daily observations at Ketchum RS, a weather station, about 2 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.