Marjan is the hill above Split, and the meteorological station behind the city’s published climate record is named for it. That makes the walk the one thing in Split with real figures attached: 30.0 °C mean daily maximum in July, and 16.5 days at or above 30 °C.
The hill is also the instrument
Every climate figure this site publishes for Split comes from the DHMZ station at Marjan. That is an unusual position for a page about somewhere to walk: the conditions are not described from memory or from a photograph, they are measured, by a named national service, over a stated thirty-year period.
Which turns the usual question inside out. There is nothing useful to say here about how long the walk takes or what it looks like — this site holds no height, no distance, no gradient, no path data and no opening hours, and it will not invent them. What it can answer precisely is the only question that actually varies: which month, and what that month does to an uphill walk in the open.
The five months anyone walks in
Read the days-above-30 column first. It is the figure that decides whether this is a pleasant hour or an ordeal, and it is far spikier than the temperature curve beside it.
| Month | Mean daily max °C | Days ≥30 °C | Days ≥25 °C | Sun h/day | Rain days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May | 22.7 | 0.1 | 9.1 | 8.8 | 6.6 |
| June | 26.8 | 5.0 | 22.0 | 10.2 | 5.7 |
| July | 30.0 | 16.5 | 29.5 | 11.2 | 3.3 |
| September | 24.9 | 1.1 | 15.4 | 8.2 | 5.8 |
| October | 19.9 | 0.0 | 1.3 | 6.2 | 7.6 |
July and August are not marginally hotter than the months either side of them; they carry almost the entire annual count of days above 30 °C between them. September has a mean daily maximum 5.1 °C lower than July’s and 15.4 fewer days above 30 °C, on eight hours of sun a day rather than eleven. The walk does not change. The proposition does.
Mean days at or above 30 °C at the Marjan station, by month. Seven months of the year record none at all, and May records a tenth of a day. Source: DHMZ (meteo.hr), climate normals 1971–2000, Split (Marjan) station.
The strip is the argument in one line. This is not a season that tapers: July and August carry 32.2 of the year’s 38.4 days above 30 °C between them, with almost nothing either side. If the trip is fixed inside those two months, the decision moves from which month to which day.
days at or above 30 °C
The top of the curve at the hottest station in the set
A mean daily maximum of 30.0 °C, 11.2 hours of sun a day and 3.3 rain days. Split is the hottest of the eight DHMZ stations in July, ahead of Hvar and Dubrovnik.
The second figure in each panel is the one people miss. Moving a walk from July to September costs nothing in the water: the sea at Split is 23.6 °C in August, 21.7 °C in September and still 19.3 °C in October, so the swim at the end of the day survives the change of month intact. The beaches run on the same series.
16.5 → 1.1
days at or above 30 °C at the Marjan station in July and in September — the same walk, two different propositions
Those two numbers are the page. Everything else about the hill is unchanged between the two dates, which is precisely why the measured figure is worth more here than a description would be.
Saving the hill for the hottest afternoon of the trip
It is a common sequence: the sea is rough or the boat is booked, so the spare afternoon in Split becomes the walking one — and in July that spare afternoon sits under a mean daily maximum of 30.0 °C, with 16.5 days of the month at or above 30 °C and 11.2 hours of sun a day. The walk is the one Split activity whose conditions this site can quantify, and the quantity says to place it deliberately rather than by default.
The fix costs nothing. Take it at the cool end of the trip and put the boat day in the gap instead: the ferry network is at its widest in exactly the weeks the hill is at its worst. The crossings out of Split are the obvious swap.
The inverse also holds, and it is the more useful half. In late September and October the figures collapse — 1.1 days above 30 °C in September, none in October, on 8.2 and 6.2 hours of sun a day — while the sea stays swimmable. That is the window in which an uphill hour is the best thing available rather than the thing you do because the boat was full. Split’s full year sets the whole series out month by month.
What this page does not carry
- What is sourced: everything above comes from the DHMZ 1971–2000 normals for the Split (Marjan) station, the station behind Split’s published record.
- What is not: height, distance, gradient, surface, routes, viewpoints, buildings, opening hours or entry costs. None of those is in a source this site can name and date.
- What is not: any hour-by-hour figure. The normals are monthly, so this page can tell you which month and not which hour.
That is a narrower page than most guides to the hill and a more reliable one, because the part it leaves out is the part the others are guessing at. For everything else Split offers on the same afternoon, the things-to-do page is organised around the same trade-off between the land and the water.
What do you need to work out next?
The month is settled. These are the rest of the Split decisions.
Where to stay
Which part of Split suits a walking day?
July records 16.5 days at or above 30 °C at the Marjan station.
Getting around
Where does the day end up?
The sea at Split is 23.6 °C in August and 19.3 °C in October.
When to go
Is October too late for Split?
No days above 30 °C, and a sea still at 19.3 °C.
Planning
What else fills the same afternoon?
Split records 3.3 rain days in July and 9.1 in November.
Climate data: DHMZ (meteo.hr), climate normals 1971–2000.