Old Quarter ReviewHanoi weather and air, today
Live readings for the Old Quarter from Open-Meteo, a public weather data service. We show their numbers exactly as published and never dress them up as our own measurements. Pair this page with Build your day to pick your walking hours.
Right now in the Old Quarter
Reading the latest public data…
The seasons, the short honest version
November to February: cool and dry, the kindest walking months, with a real chill in January. March to April: warming up, drizzle and flower streets. May to September: hot, humid, with fast afternoon rain; walk early and rest at noon. October: the golden month, milk flower scent and the clearest skies of the year.
Reading the air number
The US AQI runs from 0 to 500. Under 50 is good, under 100 is moderate, and above 150 most visitors feel it on a long walk. Hanoi's hazy winter mornings are a known pattern: on a high AQI day, walk earlier or later, keep the long route shorter, and let anyone with asthma follow their own doctor's rules rather than a website's.
The pattern by month: the worst air clusters from November to January, when still winter air settles over the city, and smoke from crop burning drifts in around the harvests. Visitors with asthma or small children usually treat anything above 100 as a take it easier day, and above 150 as a mostly indoors day.
On a bad air day, swap rather than cancel: put the museums and indoor sights in the hazy hours, walk the lake at the cleaner end of the day, and wear a mask for a long cyclo or bicycle ride. The live reading above comes from Open-Meteo's public air quality data; before we brief visitors on a bad air day, we cross-check it against the government monitors published through the World Air Quality Index project at aqicn.org, and against IQAir.