Weather in Albania

Albania’s coasts have a typical Mediterranean climate. Summers are hot and sunny. In southern coastal areas, temperatures can reach over 40 degrees Celsius. Winters are cool and rainy. In winter, temperatures in coastal areas range from 10 to 17 degrees Celsius during the day, but at night the air can dip below zero at times.

Albania’s geographical diversity causes climatic differences between different parts of the country, even though it is not a very large country. The mountain and highland areas have a continental, cooler climate. Even in the mountains, temperatures rarely exceed 20 degrees Celsius in summer. Snow can fall from November until the end of March. At the bottom of this page you will find current weather forecasts for a few cities in Albania. Vlorë and Sarande are typical southern coastal towns. Tirana is an inland city and Korča is a mountain town with frequent snowfall in winter.

The influx of tourists to Albania starts between mid-March and the end of October. However, spring and autumn are not really the high season in Albania. There are no congestion and prices are lower than normal.

Before booking a trip, it’s worth thinking about what you want from your trip. If you want to spend your beach holiday where the other people are, you’ll enjoy temperatures up to 40 degrees and your party feet will be tapping in the evenings with a group of friends. In this case, I would recommend places like Saranda, Ksamil or Dürres from July to mid-September.

If you’re a backpacker, enjoy walking your own trails, washing your head in the cool waters of mountain streams or want to meet the local people in the towns and villages, I recommend April to June, or from September to the end of October.

With slightly cooler weather, I can at least explore Albania’s eye-catching nature and sights.

My wife and I, sitting over our morning coffee, have jokingly said, “It’s going to be another day like this.” There will be more than 300 sunny days during the year. Rainfall is mostly concentrated in early spring and late autumn. Forex Bank has listed the destinations where you can enjoy the cheapest sunshine in 2017. One such destination was according to Forex Bank’s the solar index, was. Saranda in Albania, where one hour of sunshine costs only 4.2 euros, while in Helsinki the price is 22.8 euros.

In 2022, Travel Daily media published a study showing that Albania is still the cheapest place to get sunshine. In Tirana, you can enjoy the sun for $5.88 an hour. So the price of sunshine has gone up a bit, but you’re happy to pay that much for that kind of enjoyment. According to the same newspaper, Tirana enjoys a total of 3452 hours of sunshine a year.