February is Split's quietest month of the year and its coldest sea, at about 14 °C, with highs near 12 °C. It is worth it for Carnival, the Split Marathon and a city entirely to yourself — and wrong for anyone hoping for a swim or a boat trip.
By Marin Perić
For a short, cheap city break with a local festival thrown in, yes. February is the single quietest month at Split Airport — about 37,000 passengers in February 2026, against roughly 787,000 in July 2025 — and the city spends it on itself. Carnival takes over the Riva, the marathon closes it for a morning, and the rest of the time you share the palace with schoolchildren and pensioners. It is the wrong month for the sea, the islands or any plan that depends on a boat.
The DHMZ Split-Marjan normals give an average high of 11.5 °C and a low of 6.0 °C. It is slightly drier than January — about 64 mm of rain over seven wet days — and sunnier, at around five and a half hours a day. It also has the most frosty nights of the year, though that still means two on average. Winter is bura season, and on a bura day the waterfront feels far colder than the thermometer says.
Snow is rare enough to make the news. The famous exception was February 2012, when a cold wave across Europe buried Split under a record fall that stopped the traffic.
No. February and March have the coldest sea of the year, averaging about 14 °C, with a ten-year range of roughly 12 °C to 16 °C. A few hardy locals keep swimming through winter, and you will see them at Bačvice and below Marjan on a sunny morning — but it is a dip, not a swim.
Open: the palace, the cathedral, the galleries, the green market and most restaurants and cafés in the centre, on winter hours.
Shut or paused: beach bars, boat tours, and kayak and paddleboard rental. Many island restaurants are closed until around Easter.
Some town restaurants take their own holiday in January or February. Check before walking across town for one.
Carnival is the reason to come. It runs for about ten days and ends on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins — 9 February in 2027. In 2026 it opened on Saturday 7 February, when the mayor handed the city's keys to the masqueraders on the Pjaca, and closed on Tuesday 17 February with a masked parade from the Croatian National Theatre down Marmontova and along the Riva to the Prokurative, before the effigy of Krnje was burned at St Nicholas pier at around 21:30. It is a local affair — homemade costumes, neighbourhood groups, children everywhere — rather than a show put on for visitors.
The Split Marathon also runs in mid-February, starting and finishing on the Riva. In 2026 the race weekend was 13–15 February, with the marathon and half marathon starting at 9:00 on the Sunday. If you are not running, it is worth knowing that the waterfront is closed to traffic that morning.
The state fast boats to Hvar town keep an off-season timetable from 1 January to 28 May and from 28 September to 31 December. On line 9608 that means one sailing a day from Split at 16:00 and one back from Hvar at 07:30 on weekdays, at a winter fare of €6.40 in 2026, and the other year-round fast line through Hvar, towards Vela Luka and Lastovo, also leaves Split in the afternoon and comes back in the early morning. That is a timetable for islanders, not day-trippers — you cannot do Hvar as a day trip on it. Brač is the easy island in the off-season: since January 2026 Jadrolinija has kept at least 12 ferry sailings a day between Brač and the mainland all year.
Krka is at its winter price of €7 for adults, and the falls are fuller after the winter rain than in late summer. Trogir and Klis are both close, quiet and entirely workable in February.
Read the Trogir day trip or
Klis Fortress — go on a clear day for the view down to the coast.
Do the palace properly, with a guide, while there is space to stand still in the cellars and the Peristyle. Take a long lunch in a konoba. If Hajduk are at home, a night at Poljud is the most Split thing you can do in winter.
See the Diocletian's Palace walking tour and
More ideas: things to do in Split in winter.
Rooms near the Riva for the Carnival weekend and the marathon weekend, which are the only two times February fills up. Otherwise, a heated room and nothing else — this is a month for turning up.
Comparing months? Read Split in winter and
Where these numbers come from: air temperature, rain and sunshine are the 1991–2020 climate normals for the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ) station at Split-Marjan, 122 m up on Marjan hill, as published by the World Meteorological Organization through NOAA. A rain day is one with at least 1 mm. Sea temperature is the ten-year average for Split from seatemperature.info. Daylight and sunset are for the 15th of the month. Passenger figures are from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics.
Get out there
Guided trips that include this stop, with live availability.
Boat trips
A full day on a fast twelve-seat boat: the Blue Cave on Biševo, the Monk Seal cave, Stiniva's famous cove, lunch on Vis and a swim off Budikovac's turquoise lagoon, finishing with a stop at Hvar town. Ten and a half hours, small group, no coach transfer.
History
Ninety minutes through the palace with a guide who lives inside it: the Golden Gate, the cellars, the Peristyle, the cathedral and the streets in between. Small group, no flag, and a proper explanation of why a Roman emperor retired to a cabbage patch in Dalmatia.
Boat trips
Five hours to Šolta and back on a ten-person boat: three swim stops in coves you cannot reach by road, an hour in Maslinica for dinner or a drink, and the run home across the channel as the sun goes down behind the island.