When to Book and Fly in Interlaken: Choose the Season, Then Check the Forecast
The main flying season for tandem paragliding and skydiving in Interlaken runs from April to October; in winter, far fewer operators fly. Within that 7-month flying season, however, there is no reliably perfect month: MeteoSwiss records meaningful rainfall throughout the season, and wind, cloud and visibility can change from one day to the next. This guide explains which months offer the best overall conditions, what weather can ground each activity, and how to check the forecast for your exact flying day.
Choose the season for overall conditions and availability; choose the actual flying day based on the forecast. Use the live date check below for your exact day, split into the conditions that actually ground paragliding and the different ones that ground skydiving.
Tandem paragliding and skydiving in Interlaken are mainly available from April to October, with much more limited service in winter. The live weather on your day matters more than the month itself: wind, rain, cloud and visibility can all change or cancel a flight at short notice.
If your dates are flexible, June to early September offers the warmest conditions, while April and late September into October are statistically drier. There is no reliably perfect month, however, and a good forecast on your actual flying day matters more than small differences between seasonal averages.
The most useful planning decision is therefore when during your trip to book. Schedule your flight for the first or second day rather than the last, so you still have time to reschedule if the weather changes. Use the date checker below to see the forecast for your day and the conditions that matter for each activity, then check live availability for that date.
- Warmest, widest availability
- June – early September
- Drier seasonal odds
- April, late September – October
- Most important check
- Your exact-day forecast
- Best booking strategy
- First or second day of your trip
- Winter
- Much more limited availability
- 145.8mmJuly and August rainfall, the wettest months of the year
- 79.9mmOctober, the flying season's driest month (April is next, at 82.5mm)
- 1.5–2.2 m/sAverage wind across all twelve months: the season barely moves it, the day does
Both link out to live GetYourGuide availability · free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
Check your exact flight date
Pick a date: inside the next 16 days you get a live forecast, split by activity; beyond that, the MeteoSwiss seasonal average for that month.
Typical for September (MeteoSwiss seasonal average) — shown before the live check loads.
The two activities are not grounded by the same things, so the check is split:
Paragliding
- Wind & gusts: typically 5.8 km/h in September
- Rain: 93.9 mm across the whole month
- Cloud & visibility: 152 sunshine hours across the month
- Thermal activity: builds through the day in the warmer months
Wind at launch is what most often grounds a paragliding flight, and it is a same-day call.
Check paragliding availabilitySkydiving
- Cloud ceiling: low cloud is what stops a jump
- Visibility: needed from jump altitude to the ground
- Wind: typically 5.8 km/h in September
- Rain: 93.9 mm across the whole month
A high, clear ceiling matters more here than wind does, and it can change hour to hour.
Check skydiving availabilityConditions are assessed over the 09:00–18:00 flying window. The thresholds are general indicators, not any one operator’s limits — your operator makes the final call on the day.
How the season changes, month by month
MeteoSwiss measures Interlaken from the valley floor, where flights land, and records an average for every month of the year. The pattern is not the one most guides assume: rainfall rises through the summer and peaks in July and August, the two most-booked months, while April and October are measurably the driest points in the whole flying season. Each rainfall figure below is a monthly total, not a daily rate, and it says nothing about how many days were wet — 145.8mm of July rain can fall in a handful of afternoon storms and leave most mornings flyable.
| Month | Average high | Rain, whole month | Sunshine hours | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 14.7°C | 82.5mm | 163.7h | 13h 33m |
| May | 18.7°C | 122.0mm | 182.8h | 15h 00m |
| June | 22.4°C | 126.9mm | 199.9h | 15h 50m |
| July | 24.3°C | 145.8mm | 222.9h | 15h 30m |
| August | 23.7°C | 145.8mm | 199.1h | 14h 14m |
| September | 19.2°C | 93.9mm | 152.0h | 12h 37m |
| October | 14.1°C | 79.9mm | 102.4h | 10h 58m |
| November – March | 3.2–10.5°C | 66.6–90.8mm | 56.5–128.5h | 8h 35m – 11h 51m |
None of that means summer flies badly. Interlaken's paragliding operators, including Skywings Paragliding, describe the pattern as short afternoon build-up, not day-long rain: mornings are usually clear across the whole season, spring brings the strongest thermals for longer paragliding flights, and autumn's gentler thermals suit a calmer ride with better long-range visibility. The rain total is real, and it is concentrated later in the day. The variable that most often grounds a paragliding flight barely moves with the season at all: the station's average wind speed runs between 1.5 and 2.2 m/s in every month of the year, so which month you pick does almost nothing to your wind odds, while the particular day can do everything.
Other experiences you might enjoy
Once your flight day is locked in, the rest of the Jungfrau region rewards a longer stay. Around your tandem paragliding flight in Interlaken or airplane skydiving over the Swiss Alps from Reichenbach, travellers often add the Mürren paragliding panorama tandem flight, a trip up to Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe, a cruise on Lake Thun or Lake Brienz, and a day in Grindelwald or up at the Harder Kulm viewpoint above town.
Best day of the week to book
Skydiving and paragliding availability doesn't follow airline-ticket pricing patterns, but a few booking-logistics patterns hold:
- Weekdays typically have more open slots than weekends, when demand from tourists and locals peaks together.
- Weekends, especially Saturdays, book out fastest in peak season. Reserve several days ahead if a Saturday slot matters to you.
- Booking early in the week for a weekend flight, or vice versa, gives you the most flexibility if a reschedule is needed.
Does the time of day matter?
Less than you might expect, and not in the same direction for both activities. Calm is not automatically better for paragliding: the rising air that makes the ride bumpier is also what keeps a glider up, so a still morning and a lively afternoon are different flights, not a better and a worse one.
- Earlier departures can offer calmer air and clearer visibility, which suits a nervous first-timer or anyone prone to motion sickness.
- Midday to early afternoon brings more thermal activity, which is what paragliders chasing a longer flight look for, and which also means bumpier air.
- Skydiving's good and bad hours do not line up with paragliding's, because it turns on cloud rather than on thermals.
The honest answer is that the best flying time depends on the forecast and on which activity you have booked, so follow the operator's recommendation for your day. If it is your first time in the air, our first-time flyer's guide covers what each one actually feels like.
How weather grounds skydiving and paragliding differently
Both sports are grounded by low cloud ceilings, strong or gusty winds, rain or storms, and poor visibility. But they respond to different variables:
- Paragliding is more sensitive to wind direction and speed, because launch and landing depend on the wind hitting the slope correctly.
- Skydiving is more sensitive to cloud ceiling height, because jump altitude and visibility both need to be sufficient for a safe descent.
Practically, this means: don't be surprised if paragliding flights are grounded on a day that looks fine for skydiving, or the other way around. If the freefall itself is the goal, timing the skydive around a high, clear ceiling matters most — here's the flight itself, from 4,000 m.
If the weather doesn't cooperate
Both sports can be grounded at short notice, so plan around it instead of being caught out:
- Ask about the operator's rebooking policy before you pay: most reschedule free of charge for weather.
- Keep at least one extra day of flexibility in your Interlaken itinerary if these activities are a priority.
- Stay in touch with your operator on the morning of your flight; many make the go/no-go call just hours before departure based on live conditions.
- Check the live date check for your travel dates before you finalise which day to book.
Weight or age concerns as well as weather? Our guide to weight and age limits in Interlaken covers who can fly, and the skydiving vs paragliding comparison helps you pick the flight itself.
Season and week at a glance
| Best for | When |
|---|---|
| Warmest, widest availability | June – early September (also the wettest stretch) |
| Drier seasonal odds | April, late September – October |
| Most important check | The forecast for your exact flying day |
| Best booking strategy | Day one or two of your trip, never the last day |
| More open slots | Weekdays, not weekends |
| A longer paragliding flight | Midday–early afternoon, when thermals are working |
| Winter | Much more limited availability |
Fly when conditions and timing are on your side
Whatever your travel dates, booking early in your stay, choosing a morning slot, and checking the live forecast for your exact day will serve you well for either activity. If your schedule calls for a calmer, more forgiving type of flight, tandem paragliding in Interlaken can often fly on a day that keeps a skydive on the ground, because it does not need the high, clear ceiling a jump does, and it offers flexible daily time slots throughout the season, so it is the easiest to fit around a weather window.
How we know
- Climate normals
- MeteoSwiss, the Swiss national weather service — official 1991–2020 normals for the Interlaken station (578 m): monthly mean/high/low temperature, total precipitation, sunshine duration and average wind speed. Downloaded from MeteoSwiss's climate normals dataset on 10 September 2026.
- Live date check
- Open-Meteo's public forecast API, for any date within the next 16 days: temperature, precipitation, low cloud, visibility, wind speed and gusts, and convective energy for Interlaken's coordinates. We read the hourly figures and summarise them across the 09:00–18:00 flying window, because a whole-day average includes the night, when nobody is flying. Paragliding and skydiving are then assessed separately, on the conditions that ground each one. Beyond 16 days the tool falls back to the MeteoSwiss monthly average and says so plainly. Cloud base height would be the natural measure of a jump ceiling, but Open-Meteo returns no usable value for it at this location, so low cloud cover stands in as a proxy.
- Daylight
- Calculated astronomically for Interlaken's latitude (46.6863°N), not observed — a standard, repeatable method, the same one used across this site's guides.
- Seasonal flying pattern
- Interlaken paragliding operators, including Skywings Paragliding, for the qualitative description of how conditions typically change through the day and the season (morning calm, afternoon build-up, spring thermals, autumn visibility).
- Prices and reviews
- GetYourGuide live listings, scraped 17 August 2026 as part of this site's canonical price sweep. Prices shown are the floor of the live range at that date and may have changed — check the live figure at booking.
Where this stops. A monthly normal is not a forecast: it describes a typical year, not any single day, and a specific date can be wetter, drier, calmer or windier than its month suggests. It does not count how many days in the month were wet, so a high rainfall total cannot tell you whether your own morning will be flyable — which is exactly why the live date check above matters more than the month alone. The live check's wind and cloud-cover thresholds are general indicators, not any one operator's actual go/no-go limits; always confirm with your operator, especially on the morning of your flight. We do not have a measured crowd or booking-pressure series for Interlaken's flight operators, so this guide makes no claims about which months are "quieter" — only about what is actually measured: temperature, rainfall, sunshine, daylight and price.