Ithaca
Ithaca
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About
Ithaca is a city in Tompkins County, New York, on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region. It is best known as the home of Cornell University and Ithaca College and as a waterfall-rich college town.
Wikipedia →Summary excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ithaca, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text may be clipped or paraphrased to fit this page.
Why visit
Ithaca is worth visiting for gorges and waterfalls inside and around town: Ithaca Falls, Cascadilla Gorge, Buttermilk Falls, Taughannock Falls, and Robert H. Treman State Park. Add Cornell's campus, the Johnson Museum of Art, the Ithaca Commons, farmers market, Cayuga Lake wineries, and fall foliage. It is one of the strongest small-city nature-and-campus combinations in the Northeast.
When to avoid
Winter is long, grey, snowy, and icy, with steep streets and gorge trails that can become slippery or closed. Cornell move-in, graduation, and big campus weekends make lodging expensive and scarce. Some gorge trails close seasonally or after storms. If driving, watch for lake-effect snow, black ice, and deer on rural roads around the Finger Lakes.
Warm gorge season (Jun-Sep)
June through August are the period when heat, daylight, crowds, or humidity most affect a visit to Ithaca. Summer is the easiest season for walking and outdoor architecture. For Ithaca, the warm-season route should alternate shade, interiors, and outdoor stops rather than running straight through the heat. This period suits Ithaca when the trip depends on daylight, festivals, water, gardens, hills, or nearby countryside. Check the Ithaca calendar, because performances and exhibitions may slow down when visitor numbers rise.
Snowy winter (Dec-Mar)
December through February are the cooler or wetter period in Ithaca. Winter is cold and requires shorter outdoor plans. The practical issue in Ithaca is whether weather and daylight shorten the useful day. Ithaca can still be rewarding in this period if interiors and compact walks carry the day. For Ithaca, shorten exposed walks, verify opening times, and avoid making a late or wet return depend on weak transport links.
The next week in Ithaca
7-day forecast from Open-Meteo. UV badges flag days when sun protection matters (3 and above is moderate; 8 and above is risk territory for unprotected fair skin within 30 minutes).
Today
Fog
18° / 8°
UV High
Sat
Overcast
26° / 9°
UV High
Sun
Overcast
25° / 14°
UV High
Mon
Showers
31° / 15°
2.5 mm
UV High
Tue
Drizzle
30° / 17°
UV High
Wed
Drizzle
30° / 12°
3.6 mm
UV High
In May 16
JFMAMJJASOND
Air quality
No monitoring station within 25 km.
Weather
34° / -4°
Typical high / low
3 mm rainfall this month
Daylight
14.6h
05:45 – 20:19local
Year-round climate
Monthly highs, lows, and rainfall (long-term averages, NASA POWER).
Airports near Ithaca
4 commercial airports within 100 km. Closest is Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport (ITH) at 6 km.
Getting around Ithaca
Public-transit operators within 8 km of the city center. Click through to each operator’s site for routes, fares, and tickets.
Local transit operators
AmtrakTCATVIA RailTrain de CharlevoixAmtrak Chartered VehicleNew York TrailwaysSchuyler County TransitB MetroC TRANAdirondack TrailwaysFlixbusGreyhoundOcean Travel
Operators and modes aggregated by TransitLand from individual transit-agency GTFS feeds. Route classifications (subway / tram / rail / bus / etc) come from each feed’s GTFS route_type codes.
Sources
This page blends public reference data, climate/elevation services, and personal notes. Travel requirements can change, so visa and entry details should be checked again before booking.
- Wikipedia →
Summary, canonical article, and some image fallbacks.
- Wikidata →
Population, area, image, coordinates, and linked identifiers where available.
- NASA POWER →
Monthly temperature and rainfall climatology.
- Open-Meteo historical weather →
1991-2020 temperature and precipitation cross-check for compact climate fields.
- Open-Elevation →
Coordinate-based elevation backfill.
- tz database →
Coordinate-based IANA timezone lookup.
- Site credits →
Global source notes, map tiles, flags, licenses, and attribution policy.