Tenerife in February and March: carnival, almond blossom and snow on Mount Teide, from the north

Worth marking before you book. Where a date is missing, it is because nobody had published it when we wrote this, on 13 October 2026.

The big one is in Santa Cruz, and in 2027 it runs late: the city council has moved it back two weeks. The opening gala is on 22 January, the contests of murgas (satirical choirs), comparsas (dance troupes) and costumes fill the stage over the following weeks, and the carnival takes over the streets from Friday 19 to Sunday 28 February. The 19th brings the opening parade and the first night of dancing in the streets; Carnival Tuesday, the 23rd, the Coso; and the last Saturday, the 27th, the daytime carnival, followed by a night that adds up to more than 18 hours of music without a break. Fireworks close it on Sunday the 28th.

Two of those days suit anyone staying outside the city: the daytime carnival on Sunday 21 and on Saturday 27 February. You drive in after lunch, see it at its best in daylight and are back for dinner. The nights are another matter. The dancing goes on until dawn and nobody should be driving home from that, so if the night-time carnival is why you're coming, sleep in Santa Cruz, close enough to walk back. We are forty minutes away by car: fine for an afternoon, wrong for four in the morning.

Puerto de la Cruz, fifteen minutes from us, has its own: the Carnaval Internacional, with a grand parade and the Mascarita Ponte Tacón, a night-time race in high heels from the San Telmo chapel to Plaza del Charco. When we wrote this, the town hall had not yet published its 2027 dates, so ask us nearer the time. Both towns are at their loudest in carnival week, which is one of the things we cover in the quietest part of Tenerife.

From late January into March the almond trees flower on the west of the island, and February is usually when most of them are out: white and pink blossom against black lava. Tenerife's tourist board describes the classic walk. It starts in the church square of Santiago del Teide, crosses the area of Las Manchas and ends in the village of Arguayo: about nine kilometres of medium difficulty, three to four hours at an easy pace. A shorter version starts at El Calvario de los Baldíos, in Valle de Arriba, and also ends in Arguayo.

From the estate, Santiago del Teide is 46 kilometres away, under an hour by car; from the resorts of the south-west it is about twenty-five minutes, so this is one outing that is closer from the south. Some of the trees can be seen from the car on the local roads, but most stand along the paths, so walk at least part of it. How strongly they flower changes from year to year with the temperature, the rain and the wind, and Santiago del Teide had announced nothing for 2027 when we wrote this.

February and March are still snow months up top. At AEMET's Izaña station, at 2,369 metres, almost the altitude of the cable car's base station, snow falls on 2.5 days in an average February and 2.1 in March, there is frost on nine or ten days of each month, and February highs average 8 °C. From the valley, on the mornings after, the cone shows white above the green.

When it snows, the Cabildo, the island council, closes the roads into the national park by protocol until the ploughs have cleared them, and that day nobody goes up; how it works is in Tenerife in December and January. The cable car runs every day of the year except 25 December, weather permitting, and in winter the last ascent is at 16:00. The 2027 timetable had not been published by 13 October 2026, but in 2026 the winter hours lasted until 27 March. Check the status on the morning itself; prices, and how to tell whether it is running, are in our Teide cable car guide.

If you are walking the high trails in winter, the island council's environment department makes a minimum kit compulsory: mountain boots, warm clothes, a thermal blanket, water, a charged phone and a head torch.

In winter the two sides of Tenerife make two different holidays, and the official 1981-2010 averages from AEMET, Spain's met office, show by how much. At the northern airport, Los Rodeos, 632 metres up, February has highs of 16.7 °C, rain on 7.4 days and 168 hours of sunshine; March, 18.2 °C, 6.8 days and 188 hours. At the southern airport, near sea level, February has highs of 22 °C, rain on 2.2 days and 195 hours of sunshine; March, 23.1 °C, 1.9 days and 226 hours.

Los Rodeos sits on a plateau with 78 foggy days a year, so take it as the gloomy end of the north. Even so, the honest reading is plain: if the plan is a week by the pool or on the beach, in February your side of the island is the south, and we say so in where to stay: north or south. If it is carnival, walking and Teide, the north puts you closer. The month-by-month figures are in when to visit north Tenerife.

The days are drawing out, too. At the estate the sun sets at about a quarter to seven in early February and just after seven by the end of the month; on 28 March, when the clocks go forward, sunset jumps to about twenty past eight.

In winter, what matters is what nobody looks at in August. Each of the three houses at Hacienda Verde has heating and its own kitchen with oven, hob and fridge, plus a washing machine, wifi and a private terrace, and the car stays parked inside the estate. In February and March all three are open, since Casa Azul is back from 15 December 2026: La Era, El Castaño and Casa Azul, each for up to four people.

The pool is shared and unheated: in February it is for looking at, not for swimming, and we would rather say so now. What there is instead: 17,000 square metres of garden, the old threshing floor with its cart under an almond tree, and Mount Teide straight ahead, white on the mornings after a snowfall. Check-in is between 4 and 6 pm, so in February you arrive with daylight to spare. Puerto de la Cruz is fifteen minutes away, the cable car base about half an hour, Santa Cruz forty minutes and Santiago del Teide under an hour. The rest of what is around the estate is on our page about the rural houses in north Tenerife.

February is a full month on the island: in February 2026, 75 % of the beds in Tenerife's tourist accommodation were taken on an average night, more than in March (69 %). Easter is high season in the north, and in 2027 it falls in March. If your dates are fixed, ask early: the price depends on the dates and the number of nights, and we confirm it the same day you write. And if you're coming at half-term with children, we've written up north Tenerife with kids.