Nelson Bay weather: When is the best time to visit Port Stephens?

The Nelson Bay weather is pretty decent year-round. It’s coldest and wettest in June, but the best time to visit Port Stephens is probably November.

Nelson Bay in Port Stephens is one of the best short breaks away from Sydney. There are plenty of things to do in Port Stephens – most notably dolphin-watching cruises and adventures of various sorts on the Stockton Beach sand dunes. These include camel riding on Birubi Beach in Anna Bay.

6 fantastic Port Stephens experiences worth going for.

4WD dunes tour with sandboarding – whizz down the Sahara-style dunes
Dolphin-watching cruise with fun boom nets 🐬.
Quad-biking over the Worimi sand dunes – learning about local Aboriginal culture along the way.
Snorkelling with wild dolphins – the ultimate dolphin experience
Port Stephens koala sanctuary admission tickets 🐨.
Shallow water shark and ray encounter 🦈.

But the Nelson Bay weather is likely to have an impact on your time in Port Stephens. You don’t want it too hot, too cold or too wet.

d'Albora Marina in Nelson Bay, Port Stephens — Port Stephens dolphin cruises depart from d’Albora Marina in Nelson Bay. Photo courtesy of Destination NSW.

Nelson Bay weather data

So what’s the best time to visit Port Stephens? Using historic climate data from the Bureau of Meteorology, we can see that the hottest month in Nelson Bay is January. Then, the mean maximum daily temperature is 27.3°C. That’s hot, but not horrifically so. Some January days will be hotter than that, of course, but coastal breezes help.

December, February and March are all within a degree and a half of January, so the Nelson Bay weather is pretty consistent in the summer months. There are some Australian destinations where the summer weather is unbearably hot, but Port Stephens is not one of them.

The Nelson Bay weather is at its coldest in July. But with a mean maximum daily temperature of 17. 6°C, it’s hardly Antarctic. That might put you off swimming sans clothes at Samurai Beach, but not an al fresco beer at the Shoal Bay Country Club.

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Unusually for Australia, rainfall in Port Stephens is reasonably consistent year-round.

Port Stephens rainfall is lowest in October, with an average of 78.3mm. It’s highest in June, with 159mm. But the mean number of days that have rain is pretty consistent – 7.7 days in October and 9.6 days in May and June.

Best time to visit Port Stephens

So, when is the best time to visit Port Stephens? Well, there’s no real bad time. June to August might be a little cold in the water, perhaps. For the rest of the year, the Nelson Bay weather is rather agreeable. November might just be the magic month, with 79.6mm of rainfall and a mean daily maximum temperature of 24.8°C.

Tick off 9 Australian bucket list experiences

Take Blue Mountains day tour from Sydney – with kangaroo-feeding at a wildlife park, Scenic World tickets and a Parramatta River cruise.
Snorkel or dive on the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns.
Do Australia’s most spectacular drive on a Great Ocean Road day tour from Melbourne.
Drive along the beach on a 4WD day tour of Fraser Island, the world’s biggest sand island.
Have a dune-top barbecue dinner and stargazing session in the shadow of Uluru.
See penguins on Phillip Island – and more native wildlife at the Moonlit Sanctuary – on a day trip from Melbourne.
Go snorkelling, sandboarding and kayaking on Moreton Island from Brisbane.
Meet gloriously cute quokkas on Rottnest Island near Perth with a ferry and bike hire package.
Kayak with dolphins in Byron Bay.

Australian weather in other destinations