lake como in early May

We were in Lake Como last year, 2019, [seems like many lifetimes ago], the last week of April. The Wisteria was beautiful , and the gardens of Villa Balbianello were breathtaking.
The weather: one day winter, one day spring, and repeat. One day it actually rained heavily, with hail, and the power went out- the day of our cooking class. We had one specularly clear, sunny day, with very strong winds. And- another day that we kept removing our layers, until late afternoon, when the chill returned. The air temp varied greatly between morning, afternoon, and evening.
We love the area, and can't wait to return, but the best mode to approach the weather is to be prepared- with layers and a full-length raincoat.
Have a great- safe and healthy- trip!

It SHOULD BE settling down by the first of June and could be hot. May weather tends to be more variable simply because it is changing from spring to summer just like the mid-west in the US. One year the first week of June was very cool if not actually cold -- sidewalk cafes didn't open and jacket was needed. A year later at the same time it was very hot. Just have to prepare for a little of both.

I was in Varenna around May 15, 2019. It was damp and a tiny bit chilly. Rained often but not heavy downpours. I live down south and have a coat rated for Temps 30 - 55 and used it there. I wasn't uncomfortable but I like it cooler. The rain didn't stop me from enjoying the gardens or anything else. Bring an umbrella and rain jacket.

Lake Como is beautiful because it is at the southern margin of the Alps.... Expect mountain influenced variable weather... Layers.

Winter to spring? I wasn't expecting that for early May. The average day time temperatures for May 1 are 53 degrees at 8:30 am, rising to 61 at noon with a high of 64 degrees at 3:00 pm. So I have to admit I was thinking the weather wouldn't be much different than what we had in London and Edinburgh last summer. I wore my rain jacket with a sweater underneath in the morning, even when it wasn't raining to block the wind. But I am getting the impression that the issue is the range of temperatures this time of year that may make the average not that meaningful.

So what kind of range of temperatures should we be prepared for? And is the weather meaningfully different mid May? We could visit Lake Como at the end of our trip rather than the beginning, although it would not work out logistically as well. The averages are only three degrees higher on May 12 so it didn't seem worth it (56 at 8:30 am, 64 at noon, and 67 at 3:00 pm) but perhaps there is less temperature variation as May progresses.

Lake Como’s gardens are famous for their blooming periods so go in May!

In 2017 I was there in early May and regretted not packing my lightweight down jacket. The wind off the lake was very cold.

Areas near bodies of water always seem breezy to me. If the temperature is cool to begin with, the wind is not necessarily a plus. People sometimes die on the Italian lakes when storms come up suddenly and they don't get their small boats back to shore in time, though I don't know at what times of year that's most common.

Personally, I find monthly-average temperature data inadequate for vacation-scheduling and developing a packing list. I go to timeanddate.com to review actual, day-by-day, historical weather data. For many locations the graphs show hour-by-hour temperatures, and there are usually wind-speed indicators below the temperature graph. I normally check the most recent five years. I feel that gives me a good idea of the range of conditions I may experience, though naturally Year 6 could be somewhat better or worse that the previous five. It is definitely the case that conditions can vary a lot from one year to the next, so do take the time to check multiple years.

I've linked to the May 2020 statistics for Como, but you may be able to find equivalent data from the exact town you're staying in. Use the pull-down box to get statistics for May 2019, May 2018, etc.

Yes, I understand the flowers will be beautiful which is a big attraction. I just don't want to freeze!

acraven-I looked at the website you linked to and will spend some time on it. Thanks for the link. I had found one that had averages by day but that raises the possibility that extremes are being represented by averages as opposed to typical weather. And with climate change looking at the past five years is probably more useful. It actually didn't look too bad for the couple years I checked. I didn't see anything on rain. Did I miss it?

For some places there are icons for each 6-hour period indicating sun, clouds, rain, etc. They have no such information for Como, and in any case I don't know how much water has to fall for the "rain" icon to show up. If you click on the "Weather Averages" tab above the graph, you'll get a bar chart showing monthly-summary data. The total inches of rainfall (average) for each month is at the bottom of that chart. I see that May is quite wet (6.13" of rain on average), and April is wetter than June, so I'd guess early May is wetter than late May--but I'm no expert on weather.

For precipitation I confess I primarily use the weather-summary charts present in many Wikipedia city entries. They often give inches of rainfall and days of rain by month. Sometimes you just get inches or rain, not days with rain.

I find precipitation data a bit harder to interpret and evaluate than temperature data. Washington DC gets a lot of rain--more than most places in Europe (Bergen, Norway, being a major exception), but our rain tends to fall rather heavily over a short period of time, as opposed to the off-and-on all-day drizzle you experience in some other places, which annoys me more as a tourist.

https://weatherspark.com

I found the above website that has rainfall information by the day for a particular location. A graph shows that on average days with measurable precipitation climbs over the month of May and then declines in June for Lake Como. (I specifically looked at Menaggio but the data used may be the same for all the towns).