We are excited for our end-of-June trip to Belgium and Holland. Packing list says that raincoats and/or "quality windbreakers" are a necessity year-round for this tour. We are aiming to back as light as possible, only one carry on bag apiece for our two weeks.
Have you done the Belgium and Holland tour in late June? Can we get away with a light jacket, or would you advise packing better raingear and outerwear? Hope to be minimalists, but also hate to be cold and wet!
Thanks for any advice!
A light weight water resistant wind breaker is enough and just pull out something long sleeved as needed to layer.
Just for grins. Take a look.
I would take a long sleeve t-shirt to put under a long sleeve shirt and buy an umbrella if the need arose.
I can't recall ever wearing a "quality windbreaker" in June. An umbrella or raincoat will suffice. You'll have to be very unlucky for the weather to be that bad that you'll need anything more than a raincoat.
The weather in the Netherlands and Belgium is difficult to predict and historical averages are meaningless. Take for instance the month of March. In 2022, the month of March was the warmest one in decades with lots of sun and warm temperatures. So people who visited then will likely tell you that you don’t need a wind breaker or anything like that.
This year however March was the complete opposite. It was cold and miserable and it felt like it rained non stop the entire month. And so far, April is the same. You definitely need warm and waterproof clothes and shoes right now!
In June we have had anything from a heatwave with the highest temperature ever recorded in our country to cold and miserable weather.
It’s impossible to say what the weather will be this June. If you come back to ask closer to your departure date, we can give you some indication of what the temperature will be like.
When I travel north of the Alps, even in midsummer, I always pack a warm layer (at least a fleece jacket; a merino-wool sweater would also work) and a waterproof jacket. It is all too easy to look at the average high temperature for a destination and subconsciously expect that sort of weather every day. Averages hide some pretty miserable extremes. Furthermore, the temperature you experience at 8 AM or 9 AM (or 6 PM or 7 PM) may not closely resemble the day's high temperature. If you get soaked to the skin in the Benelux countries, you could end up being really miserable on a cool day.
I also pack a good-quality, relatively lightweight collapsible umbrella, because I don't want to have to go looking for one if it starts to rain. You can't really trust weather forecasts in places like the Netherlands; rain can show up unexpectedly. I've had the experience of losing an umbrella and having to buy one quickly from a street vendor, as Rick suggests. It as cheap, as one would expect. Unfortunately, it was also junk.
The handle broke off almost immediately and the umbrella completely failed long before the end of the day.
The website timeanddate.com provides actual, historical, day-by-day weather statistics for most cities of any size. The data goes back about ten years. Reviewing the most recent five years' worth of data will give you a decent idea of the range of conditions you might experience. I see that on June 30, 2021 the high temperature in Amsterdam was 61F, and it looks as if it rained for a good bit of the day. Wikipedia tells me that in the average month of June, it rains in Amsterdam on 9.7 days.
TImeanddate.com weather statistics for Amsterdam - June 2021
You can use the pull-down box above the graph to change the month and year. Use the Search box near the top right to find data for other cities.
Thanks to all of you for your very helpful replies! We will bring layers, and some rain protection, still packing as light as we can. Mother Nature is not predictable, so we will be prepared and flexible!
