Things to Do in Palm Springs in June

June is the month the weather stops being a talking point and starts being a constraint. The average high is 103.6 and the normal rainfall for the entire month is 0.00 inches — the only month on the calendar with a zero.

Plenty of people have a good time here in June. They just do it on a different schedule.

Zero

June is the driest month in a place that only gets 4.61 inches of rain in a year. The 1991 to 2020 normal is zero. Not “close to zero” — the number NOAA publishes is 0.00.

One thing this rules out: June gloom does not happen here. That is a coastal phenomenon, marine layer cloud measured at places like San Diego, and it does not make it over the mountains. If somebody tells you June in the desert is overcast, they have confused it with Oceanside.

The day it hit 123

On 17 June 2021 Palm Springs reached 123 degrees, in a heat wave that ran 120 on the 15th and 118 to 119 for three days after.

That tied the all-time record at the time. It is no longer the record — July 2024 took it — but it is the June record, and it is a useful number to hold in your head when you are deciding whether to walk somewhere at two in the afternoon.

What closes, and when

June is the month the summer schedule fully lands.

• The Living Desert goes to 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. from 1 June, with last admission an hour before close and advance tickets required.
• Sunnylands closes to the public in early June and stays closed until the middle of September — house, gardens, all of it.
• The canyons hold their daily schedule until early July, then drop to Friday, Saturday and Sunday only.
• VillageFest shifts an hour later, running 7 to 10 p.m. from June through September.
• The Saturday farmers market moves indoors to the Pavilion for the summer.

Restaurants close too, and that is its own local tradition — fewer customers and enormous air conditioning bills. Individual places shut for anywhere from six weeks to three and a half months, and the closures are announced rather than published to a schedule. Check before you drive anywhere for dinner.

The 5 a.m. rule

Heat here is a safety issue and the official guidance is blunt about it. The National Park Service tells people to hike before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m., and to carry four litres of water per person plus extra for cooling off.

Riverside County opens 69 free cool centers on 1 June and keeps them open into October. That is not a tourist service — it is a public health measure, and the fact that it exists at this scale tells you what the county expects the summer to do to people.

The locals’ version of all this is simple: everything outdoors happens at dawn. Hikes start in the dark. By nine in the morning the day’s outdoor business is done.

More: how to get through a heatwave here · living well in the valley, not just surviving it

The month the ground broke open

At dawn on 28 June 1992 the magnitude 7.3 Landers earthquake hit the desert north of the valley. It opened more than 70 kilometres of surface rupture — the longest in the United States since 1906 — and three hours later the magnitude 6.3 Big Bear quake went off in the mountains.

You can still find the Landers rupture on the ground out there. It is the largest thing that has happened in this desert in living memory and most visitors have never heard of it.

More: earthquake weather · Landers

What is actually good in June

• The tram. Ten minutes and about 6,000 feet gets you 30 to 40 degrees cooler. In June that is the difference between 103 and the low seventies, and the trails at the top are the only comfortable hiking left.
• Water. This is the month the pool becomes the reason you are here rather than a feature of the hotel.
• Rates. They collapse. June is one of the cheapest months of the year and the hotels are not full.
• Restaurant Week runs into the first week of June.
• Up the hill. Idyllwild is an hour away and twenty-odd degrees cooler.

More guides

• Things to do in Palm Springs this weekend
• July in Palm Springs
• May in Palm Springs
• The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
• Idyllwild as a day trip
• Quiet spots in the valley

Weather figures are NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals for Palm Springs International Airport. Records are from the National Weather Service. Hours and dates change; check the operator before you go.