Lyon or Rome: which climate?
Lyon (France) has a temperate oceanic climate, whereas Rome (Italy) has a hot-summer mediterranean climate, according to the Köppen-Geiger classification.
The values compared here are normals computed over 86 complete calendar years, from 1940 to 2025, using ERA5 reanalysis data from the Copernicus programme. The same method and the same period apply to Lyon and to Rome.
Rome is warmer than Lyon by 3.9 °C in annual average: 15.2 °C against 11.3 °C.
Lyon gets more rain than Rome: 961 mm per year against 860 mm.
Rome gets 10.0 hours of sunshine per day on average, against 8.8 hours in Lyon.
Lyon has warmed by +2.5 °C between 1940 and 2025, against +2.0 °C in Rome. Lyon is therefore warming faster than Rome. Both trends are statistically significant.
Lyon averages 14 hot days (≥ 30 °C) and 54 frost days per year; Rome averages 43 and 17.
Data from ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service), redistributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Normals are recomputed whenever the archive is updated.
| Indicator | Lyon | Rome | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily temperature | 11.3 °C | 15.2 °C | +3.9 °C |
| Average daily high | 15.6 °C | 20.1 °C | +4.5 °C |
| Average daily low | 7.3 °C | 10.7 °C | +3.4 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 961 mm | 860 mm | -101 mm |
| Sunshine / day | 8.8 h | 10.0 h | +1.2 h |
| Hot days (≥ 30 °C) | 14 d/yr | 43 d/yr | +29 d/yr |
| Frost days (< 0 °C) | 54 d/yr | 17 d/yr | -37 d/yr |
| Rainy days (≥ 1 mm) | 141 d/yr | 107 d/yr | -34 d/yr |
| Mean relative humidity | 75 % | 74 % | negligible |
| Average peak wind | 14.9 km/h | 13.8 km/h | negligible |
A difference is only reported when it exceeds the resolution of the data. ERA5 is a reanalysis on a grid of about 31 km: two nearby cities often fall in the same cell, and below half a degree you are reading the grid, not the climate.