Pool season · North Carolina
Raleigh Pool Season: the Year on One Bar
Last updated: July 15, 2026 · dates · water temp
Raleigh's whole pool calendar, condensed: when the water warms, when it cools, and where today falls between those edges. Use the opening guide and closing guide for the step-by-step work; keep this page for the dates.
Reading it takes ten seconds: 52 dots, one per week. Solid teal is Raleigh's swim season; the hollow teal run before it (March 27 to April 17) is when to open; the hollow amber run after is when to close, with October 27 as the deadline; gray is the covered season. Today's marker shows where you stand in that cycle right now.
The Raleigh pool calendar
Opening — target April 3
Open by April 3 — a two-week head start on the April 17 crossing keeps startup chemistry small and beats the local service rush.
Closing — deadline October 27
The window opens October 17 once water leaves the algae zone; the model deadline is October 27, a week ahead of the November 8 freeze normal.
Estimated water temperature by month
Monthly averages of the site's water model run on Raleigh's own normals — the shape of a typical year, not a forecast. The widget above shows where the current year actually sits.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43° | 42° | 48° | 56° | 65° | 73° | 79° | 80° | 76° | 67° | 56° | 48° |
Warmest water typically July–August (peaking near 80°F); heaters and covers shift any month up.
Email me when Raleigh hits the closing window
Data: NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals via Raleigh State University (4.2 mi); live outlook by Open-Meteo. Attribution: sources · assumptions: methodology.