Vandenberg AFB Weather (Now Vandenberg Space Force Base)

Introduction

Welcome to beautiful Santa Barbara County, California. As far as weather goes at Vandenberg AFB (Now Space Force Base), you aren’t going to have much to worry about here. It’s basically lovely all year round. It’s two hours up the coast from Los Angeles and Venice Beach and has about the same climate. So you can imagine the sunshine and comfortable temperatures you’re going to experience here. It rarely gets anywhere near cold, though, so if you’re a ski bunny, then you might be a little disappointed. You’ll have to consider a weekend trip to somewhere farther north. Otherwise, this place will be fairly welcoming to pretty much everyone else. Vandenberg weather is mild in the summer and winter, and spring and fall are exceedingly comfortable. The most you’ll worry about are chilly mornings leading into winter and during the coldest days of February.

Suggested Read: Vandenberg AFB: In-Depth Welcome Center

Spring

High: Low 60s
Low: 45

Sping at Vandenberg is very mild, with temperatures that are able to dip below 40 degrees, but in the same way that the moon has the ability to turn into string cheese. It’s unlikely to happen on an average day. You’re going to have cool mornings during the spring months, so don’t be surprised to be a bit chilled when you wake up, but as the day goes on it’ll start to warm up. Clouds will fill the skies about a quarter of the time, but heavily overcast days will be rare. This is a holdover from winter when overcast days are more common. Spring continues the wet season at Vandenberg. Wet days peak in the winter and the chances of rain wind down through the spring and finish in the dry summer months. At the end of May, you might see about a half-inch of rain. You’ll have around 12 hours of daylight every day, as the sun rises before 0800 and sets after 1400. You’ll really luck out at Vandenberg in terms of humidity. There isn’t any at all during the spring months.

Summer

High: 80
Low: 50s

And here we are in the dry season. The chance of precipitation is lowest at the beginning of August at 0 percent. That’s right, there’s absolutely no rain at the end of July moving into August, and it’s unlikely that you’ll see much at all over the months of summer. Rainfall should gradually pick up as September winds down, but the summer is not going to cancel any baseball games around here. Temperatures in the summer are extraordinarily nice. You’ll be very comfortable on an average day. Most days will see the highs around the upper 60s and low 70s, with the lows in the 50s. It could be cool in the mornings and evenings, but the afternoons will be just about perfect. And it never gets too hot, either, so don’t expect to have to hide from the heat in the middle of the day. Cloud coverage is very minimal in summer. You’ll see some wisps here and there in less than 10% of days. A massive 14 and a half hours of daylight will light up the Vandenberg summers. The earliest sunrise will happen at about 0545 and the sun will set the latest at 2020. Note that the only real humidity at Vandenberg happens during the summer and spikes to around 30%. The fact that it’s so low means that you’ll basically never feel it.

Fall

High: 70
Low: 40

Fall is much like spring with mild temperatures and low rainfall. The peak heat of summer takes a while to burn down, and you can look forward to comfortable temps following you all the way into the start of winter. The humidity creeps back down slowly from its height in August but doesn’t disappear completely until December. Lows will generally be in the 50s but can sink down below 40 on exceptionally rare days. It’s still going to be very comfortable overall, with some chill in the mornings now and again. You’ll see more cloud coverage, but not by much. It’ll peak in the winter, but as for now, the clouds will sprout up around 25% of the time. Precipitation starts to creep up here in the fall, and about 12% of fall days will have some rain. It won’t exactly be wet through, as October will see only .5 inches in total. Daylight falls back down to about 12 hours and sunrise comes back up closer to 0800.

Winter

High: 70
Low: Low 30s

It’s possible for temperatures to reach freezing at Vandenberg, but it’s also possible for the molten iron core at the center of the earth to freeze, too. This is to say that you shouldn’t expect it. Highs can reach 70 degrees, but you really shouldn’t expect that, either. Most likely, you’ll spend the winter days in temps ranging from 40-60 degrees, which isn’t going to call for any major layering. So again, Vandenberg AFB weather is very comfortable overall, all year round. You will experience cold mornings until winter temperatures rise in the afternoons and settle in. What you have to watch for the most in the winter is the cloud coverage, which now rises to encompass about half the days of the season. It’s going to turn gray for a while. And it’s going to rain more often, with about a 24% chance of rain in February. The month will also see the most rainfall by inches, at an average of 3.2. But it can get even more than that, all the way up to 7.5 inches. You’ll have the least amount of daylight from November to February, too. The sun will be out somewhere around 9 and a half hours a day. The earliest sunset will arrive in the beginning of December and occur before 1700. It’s going to be dark and cloudy and wet in comparison to the rest of the year, but very comfortable considering.

Field & Training Expectations

You won’t have much to worry about the weather in terms of physical activity. In a lot of places, you’d need to worry about the intense heat or layering up in the cold, but here at Vandenberg AFB (now Space Force base) the weather is decent the whole year. It isn’t going to matter much whether you’re marching in June or the middle of February. Two things to mind are the sun and the early mornings of winter. In the summer months, though the temperatures are comfortable, you’ll still need to check the UV index. Make sure to wear sunscreen to protect your skin against the harmful rays of the sun. In the winter months, you’ll probably want to cover up early in the day and probably later in the evening, as well. If you’re getting physical during the day though, you might not need to modify your dress much. The heat of your body could be enough to get you through.

Conclusion

The weather is nice all year. There isn’t much to worry about or complain about there. There’s no telling whether that’s true about the rest of what you’ll go through here. But one thing’s for sure; the weather isn’t going to be one of your problems.

The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.