Azerbaijan's best season: which months work and why the mountain roads decide

The short answer first: go between late April and early June, or between September and late October.

Temperature is only half of why. Azerbaijan puts the Caspian seafront and stone villages above 2,000 m into the same itinerary, and the two run on different calendars. In March, when Baku is already comfortable, the mountain roads are still under snow. So "which month" depends on how far from the coast you intend to go.

Birtour is a destination management company based in Baku. What follows is what we tell clients before they book, with sources and the dates we checked them. Tokyo stays the reference point throughout, because most people reading this are planning travel out of Japan, or advising someone who is.

Baku temperatures and rainfall by month

Figures are climate-data.org normals for 1991 to 2021, checked by us on 28 July 2026.

Annual rainfall is 291 mm, less than a fifth of Tokyo's. Climates to Travel describes Baku's climate as close to semi-desert, and that matches how we plan: losing a full day to rain almost never happens in this city.

What Baku has instead is wind. The cold khazri from the north and the warm gilavar from the south decide how the city feels, and a khazri day reads colder than the thermometer says.

The mountain side is a different country

A light shirt in Baku and a jacket in Sheki on the same afternoon is normal. Average highs and lows for the three main mountain-side bases (climate-data.org, 1991 to 2021 normals, checked by us on 28 July 2026):

Annual rainfall runs 684 mm in Sheki and 737 mm in Gabala. Guba posts the biggest single months of the three, 106 mm in June alone. That is more than double Baku's total, which is why the mountain side is green and why it needs rain gear. The wet peak is May and June.

These are town figures. The villages further up are colder again; Khinalig sits at about 2,350 m.

Nakhchivan is different again

Nakhchivan is an exclave, cut off from the rest of the country, on an inland plateau at about 900 m. Climates to Travel gives January an average high of 3.5 °C and an average low of minus 5.3 °C, with cold snaps below minus 20 °C. July averages a 34.7 °C high, roughly five degrees above Baku on the same day.

That makes Nakhchivan the destination with the widest annual swing. If your route includes it, May to June and September to October suit it best. The city itself is covered on our Nakhchivan page.

When is the road to Khinalig open?

Reliably, from late May to early October: the weeks with the most stable road conditions, and the season when the mountain pastures are in use. From November to April, heavy snow closes the road in practice, sometimes for days at a time, and we do not take self-drive convoys up the mountain then.

This one constraint shapes itineraries more than any temperature table. The main road up from Guba is paved as of mid-2026, but paved is not the same as passable; the road surface and the state of the pass are separate questions. Travel guides that cover the village in English settle on the same careful phrasing for winter, "the road can become impassable" (Backpack Adventures, LAIDBACK TRIP).

A winter visit is not impossible. On a settled day, with a driver who knows the mountain and a vehicle suited to it, you can get up. The judgment is whether you can accept getting up and finding the way back closed for a few days. On a schedule with no slack, we would not place that bet. Our own expeditions go in September and early October, when the weather steadies and the autumn light arrives.

When should you go to Sheki and Gabala?

May to June or September to October. May and June are the greenest months and also the wettest, so you trade colour for rain. September and October bring drier, more predictable weeks, with Sheki daytime highs easing from 22.7 to 16.5 °C, walking temperatures the whole way. Winter suits the ski resorts more than the 300 km drive from Baku.

Weather Spark puts Sheki's snow season at 7 December to 23 March, peaking in February at about 4.6 cm on average. The old town and the Khan's Palace stay open through winter; the harder part is the drive from Baku, which becomes hard to time once the passes along the way are in play.

Gabala keeps a second, winter face. Tufandag mountain resort, and Shahdag above Gusar, opened the 2025/26 season on 15 December 2025 (karavan.az). Skiers arriving from Japan are still rare here; the option exists all the same.

How hot is Baku in summer, really?

Average July and August highs are around 29 °C, lower on paper than Tokyo. Heat waves change that; Climates to Travel puts them at 38 to 40 °C. The air is far drier than Tokyo's, so shade and the Caspian wind make the city manageable. Shadeless sites are the real problem.

The three places where the heat costs you are Gobustan's rock art, the mud volcanoes, and the Absheron fire sites, all open ground with no cover. In July and August we run those in the early morning and keep the afternoons for museums and palaces.

Summer pays something back too. The Caspian rises above 23 °C from July to September and is swimmable (Climates to Travel). The mountain towns run cooler than the coast, which is why Sheki and Gabala are where Azerbaijanis themselves spend summer. And the road to Khinalig is at its most dependable exactly then.

Holidays and the weeks that fill up

Novruz is the new year festival timed to the spring equinox, fixed at five public holidays by Article 105 of Azerbaijan's Labour Code. The official non-working days in 2026 were 20 to 24 March, and because they met the Ramadan holiday that year, the break stretched from 20 to 30 March (Report.az). The Cabinet of Ministers publishes the 2027 dates by the end of 2026; Novruz and Gurban dates are announced fresh each year, so check the announcement if you are planning around them.

Is Novruz a time to avoid? We would not put it that way. On each of the four Tuesdays before the equinox a different element is honoured, water, fire, wind and earth in turn, and the fire-jumping happens only then. You trade crowds for scenes that exist at no other time of year.

The September 2026 race weekend is impossible to ignore in planning terms. The circuit runs past the Old City and along the seafront boulevard, so traffic restrictions and hotel pricing reach well beyond the grandstands. Unless the race is why you are coming, aim for early September or October.

What to pack, month by month

April to May. A light shirt covers the day; mornings, evenings and the mountain side are colder, so bring one light jacket. May and June are the wet months in the mountains; pack a folding umbrella or a light rain shell.

June to August. Short sleeves are fine in Baku. Mosques and mausoleums require covered shoulders and knees; a thin scarf solves it on the spot for women. Mountain nights drop to around 15 °C, so carry a light long-sleeve layer.

September to October. The easiest packing of the year. A shirt by day, a jacket for the evening. October mornings in Sheki and Guba average lows of 7.9 °C, so mountain overnights start cold.

November to March. Baku rarely goes below freezing, but the wind takes the felt temperature well under the number. A coat plus a windproof layer; gloves and waterproof shoes if you head for the mountains.

On footwear we say the same thing in every season. The old towns of Baku and Sheki are cobbled and sloped, and broken-in shoes do more for a trip than any seasonal wardrobe.

If you want the season you saw on screen

Season two of the TBS drama VIVANT was filmed from August to the end of October 2025, across eight regions of Azerbaijan: Baku, Sumgayit, Ganja, Nakhchivan, Shamakhi, Gabala, Sheki and Guba. How the eight sit on the map, and how many days they take, is worked out in the filming regions map.

The light and the colour of the grass on screen belong, in other words, to late summer and autumn. If matching that season is the goal, September to October is the answer as written. In our own judgment those are also the two best-conditioned months this country has, so the drama happens to point at the right time of year.

Birtour's ten-day tour is the only one that covers all eight regions Baku Media Center named. The tour runs year-round, with one caveat we state before anyone books: in winter we take the northern highlands, Khinalig included, out of the route and give those days to Baku and Sheki. It is not the same trip, and we spell out the difference in the quote. How we arrange Japanese-speaking guides, confirmed booking by booking rather than held as a standing roster, is on the Japanese-speaking guide page.

Sources

• climate-data.org, the Baku, Sheki, Gabala and Guba pages, 1991 to 2021 normals (checked by us on 28 July 2026)
• Climates to Travel, Azerbaijan: Baku heat waves and winds, Caspian water temperature, Nakhchivan climate (checked by us on 28 July 2026)
• Weather Spark, Sheki: snow period and season boundaries (checked by us on 28 July 2026)
• Official website of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, public holidays list: Novruz is five days, with dates announced each year (checked by us on 28 July 2026)
• Report.az, non-working days and the production calendar for 2026: Novruz 20 to 24 March
• English Wikipedia, "Novruz in Azerbaijan", on the five-day provision in Article 105 of the Labour Code
• Formula 1 official announcement: the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix runs 25 to 27 September (via Caliber.az, 10 June 2025)
• karavan.az, 18 December 2025: Shahdag and Tufandag opened the 2025/26 season on 15 December 2025
• The Khinalig access window is our own operating record, not a published source

Climate normals are averages of past years, not a forecast for your dates. As departure approaches, check an actual forecast alongside this page.

Disclosure

Birtour is not affiliated with TBS, with the VIVANT production committee, or with the travel companies selling packaged VIVANT departures. We are a destination management company based in Baku. We did not work on the production.