Antwerp or Lille? Weather and busy months compared

TL;DR

Of our 157 European cities, Antwerp and Lille are each other's closest weather match in another country: month by month, their average highs differ by 0.1 °C on average and their rainy days by 0.5. Their busy seasons differ: in 2025 Belgium peaked in July and France in August.

Weather, month by month

1991–2020 averages at each city's weather station.2 Of every city we publish, Lille is the one whose year of highs and rainy days is closest to Antwerp's, and the other way round.

Antwerp and Lille: average weather by month, 1991 to 2020
MonthHigh, AntwerpHigh, LilleLow, AntwerpLow, LilleRainy days, AntwerpRainy days, LilleRain, AntwerpRain, Lille
January6.6 °C6.6 °C1.1 °C1.7 °C12.2 days11.2 days68 mm58 mm
February7.6 °C7.5 °C1.0 °C1.9 °C11.0 days10.6 days60 mm51 mm
March11.1 °C11.2 °C2.7 °C3.8 °C10.2 days10.1 days54 mm52 mm
April15.2 °C15.0 °C5.1 °C5.9 °C8.5 days9.2 days42 mm45 mm
May18.8 °C18.4 °C9.1 °C9.3 °C9.6 days9.5 days58 mm62 mm
June21.6 °C21.3 °C12.2 °C12.1 °C10.0 days9.8 days73 mm64 mm
July23.6 °C23.7 °C14.2 °C14.2 °C10.2 days9.9 days78 mm68 mm
August23.5 °C23.7 °C13.7 °C14.0 °C10.5 days9.9 days84 mm71 mm
September20.0 °C20.2 °C10.7 °C11.4 °C9.6 days9.7 days70 mm57 mm
October15.3 °C15.4 °C7.4 °C8.4 °C10.7 days10.8 days66 mm64 mm
November10.3 °C10.3 °C4.1 °C4.9 °C12.3 days13.3 days76 mm75 mm
December7.0 °C7.0 °C1.8 °C2.3 °C13.6 days12.2 days89 mm73 mm

When each country is busy

Share of each country's 2025 tourist nights by month; “quieter” marks a month under an even share of the year (8.3%).1 These are whole-country figures, not the cities'.

Belgium and France: share of 2025 tourist nights by month
MonthBelgiumFrance
January4.4% (quieter)4.3% (quieter)
February5.2% (quieter)4.7% (quieter)
March6.4% (quieter)5.0% (quieter)
April9.0%7.6% (quieter)
May9.4%8.6%
June9.2%10.1%
July13.6%16.6%
August13.1%19.3%
September8.2% (quieter)8.7%
October8.6%6.2% (quieter)
November6.2% (quieter)3.9% (quieter)
December6.8% (quieter)4.8% (quieter)

Months that were quieter than average in Belgium but not in France: September. The other way round: April and October.

More on each

What this cannot tell you

  • Quieter is relative. A quieter month is a smaller share of that place's own year, not fewer visitors than somewhere else.
  • One weather station per city. Coasts, mountains and city centres differ; these are long-term averages, not a forecast.
  • Country and prefecture totals. How busy a month is comes from the whole country or prefecture, not the city.
  • 2025 only. One year of visits; events and holidays move between years.

Key takeaways

  • Average highs differ by 0.1 °C a month on average; rainy days by 0.5.
  • Busiest month in 2025: Belgium July, France August.
  • Quietest: Belgium January, France November.
  • What we would skip: treating alike weather as an alike trip. Prices, distances and what there is to do are not compared here.

Sources

The weather comes from the World Meteorological Organization's 1991–2020 normals and the visits from Eurostat, copied from each city's and country's own page. See how we research.

  1. Source: Eurostat, Nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments – monthly data, doi:10.2908/TOUR_OCC_NIM, accessed 25 September 2026. Dataset last updated by Eurostat on 22 September 2026. Extract: number of nights, NACE codes I55.1–I55.3, all guests and split by guests resident in the country and abroad, January–December 2025.
  2. Weather: WMO Member Nations (2023). WMO Climatological Standard Normals for 1991-2020 (NCEI Accession 0253808), the station named for each country in the table (the same station its country page uses), mean daily maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation and number of days with at least 1 mm of precipitation, normals computed from at least 24 years; also station MilanoLinate (station ID 00016080); also station BariPalese (station ID 00016270), from the same files, downloaded 24 September 2026. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. doi:10.25921/800j-vn07. Accessed 22 September 2026. Released by NOAA under CC0.

We matched, sorted and rounded the figures ourselves, and the rule for a match is ours; the agencies have not checked or endorsed these pages. Shares are rounded once, to one decimal.