Funchal · Inland, above Funchal
Monte: the parish that shows what altitude costs
The short answer
Monte is a parish of Funchal municipality, several hundred metres above the city and reached by cable car. Its weather station recorded a mean annual air temperature nearly four degrees below the Funchal seafront station in 2025. It sits at the base of the cloud layer that forms over the island most of the year.
Mean annual air temperature, Monte, 2025
16.6 °C
Station: Monte / Quinta Jardins do Imperador.
DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira · check it · read August 26, 2026Mean annual air temperature, Funchal/Lido, 2025
20.4 °C
Sea level, same municipality, same year.
DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira · check it · read August 26, 2026Mean annual air temperature, Monte, 2024
17.7 °C
The previous year, for context.
DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira · check it · read August 26, 2026Mean wind speed, Monte, 2024
4.8 km/h
Predominant direction N. Sheltered rather than exposed.
DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira · check it · read August 26, 2026Ground elevation at the centre of Monte
580 m
Copernicus DEM sample at the centre point.
Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API · check it · read August 26, 2026Highest ground sampled within about 700 m of the centre
782 m
This describes terrain near the centre point, not the full parish.
Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API · check it · read August 26, 20265 more sourced figures on this page
Usual base of Madeira’s trade-wind cloud layer
600–800 m
Descends lower in summer. This band produces the fog drip the island’s vegetation lives on.
Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade) · check it · read August 26, 2026Usual top of that cloud layer in winter
about 1,600 m
Villages above roughly 500–600 m are materially cloudier and cooler than the coast below them.
Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade) · check it · read August 26, 2026Monte parish, resident population
5,794
Censos 2021, Quadro 10. DREM publishes no parish estimates after the census.
DREM / INE, 2021 · check it · read August 26, 2026Monte to central Funchal, modelled
8 minutes
OSRM free-flow output over 4.7 km. Not a measured journey.
OSRM over OpenStreetMap data · check it · read August 26, 2026Monte to Madeira Airport, modelled
22 minutes
OSRM free-flow output over 20.3 km, to the departures forecourt on Avenida das Partidas. Not a measured journey.
OSRM over OpenStreetMap data · check it · read August 28, 2026Monte is the clearest single demonstration of the rule that decides where people should live on this island. It is a parish of Funchal municipality, a few minutes above the city by road, and it is a different climate.
Anyone weighing a hillside view against a seafront flat should read this page first, because the trade is measurable and it is bigger than it looks.
Four degrees, in one municipality, in one year
The Monte station recorded a mean annual air temperature of 16.6 °C, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026 in 2025. Funchal/Lido, on the seafront of the same municipality, recorded 20.4 °C, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026. That is a gap of nearly four degrees, in the same year, published by the same statistics office. In 2024 the Monte reading was 17.7 °C, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026.
The elevation model puts the centre of the parish at 580 m, source: Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API, read August 26, 2026, with ground within a few hundred metres rising to 782 m, source: Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API, read August 26, 2026. That range describes terrain near the centre point, not the whole parish, which like most of Madeira runs a long way further up and down than a single sample suggests.
Why the cloud sits here
Madeira’s persistent trade-wind cloud layer normally forms between 600–800 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 and about about 1,600 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 in winter, and drops lower in summer. Monte sits at the bottom edge of that band. That is the mechanism behind the temperature gap, and it is also why villages above roughly five or six hundred metres are materially cloudier than the coast directly below them.
The compensation is shelter. Mean wind at the Monte station was 4.8 km/h, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026 in 2024, predominant direction north — cool and damp rather than exposed. The same effect, measured across the whole island, is set out separately.
What is actually here
Centro de Saúde do Monte sits on Estrada dos Marmeleiros, below Hospital dos Marmeleiros, and opens on weekdays. It has no urgência. Neither does Hospital dos Marmeleiros itself, which surprises people: there is a hospital building above the parish and no emergency department in it. The region’s only twenty-four-hour hospital emergency department is at Hospital Dr. Nélio Mendonça, down in the city.
None of the fourteen chain supermarket addresses recorded for Funchal municipality is in Monte. Lidl has no store anywhere in the archipelago. Four Horários do Funchal bus routes serve the parish, by way of Corujeira de Dentro, Largo da Fonte, Babosas and Nazaré. All Madeiran route numbers changed to a three-digit scheme on 9 March 2026.
Who lives here, and the drive
Monte counted 5,794, source: DREM / INE, 2021, read August 26, 2026 residents at the 2021 census. DREM publishes no parish-level estimates after that census — only municipality figures — so this number is four years old, as every parish figure on this site is.
Modelled at free-flow speed over OpenStreetMap data, the centre of Funchal is 8 minutes, source: OSRM over OpenStreetMap data, read August 26, 2026 and the airport 22 minutes, source: OSRM over OpenStreetMap data, read August 28, 2026. Those are short. What they do not capture is the gradient: this is a road that climbs several hundred metres in a few kilometres, and it behaves differently in cloud.
Who it does not suit
Anyone who wants reliable sun and warmth — it sits in the altitude band where the island’s cloud layer forms, and its station ran nearly four degrees cooler than the Funchal seafront across 2025.
Questions people actually ask
How much cooler is Monte than Funchal seafront?
Nearly four degrees on the 2025 annual means: 16.6 °C, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026 at Monte against 20.4 °C, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026 at Funchal/Lido, both published by DREM, both in the same municipality. The mechanism is altitude — Monte sits at 580 m, source: Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API, read August 26, 2026, at the base of the cloud layer that normally forms between 600–800 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 and about about 1,600 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026.
Is there an emergency department at Hospital dos Marmeleiros?
No. Hospital dos Marmeleiros has no urgência, and neither does Centro de Saúde do Monte below it. The region’s only twenty-four-hour hospital emergency department is at Hospital Dr. Nélio Mendonça in Funchal. A hospital building nearby is not the same thing as emergency cover, and on this island the difference is worth checking rather than assuming.
Is Monte a good place to live, or just to visit?
The published facts point in both directions and this page does not resolve them for anyone. It is a residential parish of 5,794, source: DREM / INE, 2021, read August 26, 2026 people with a weekday health centre and four bus routes, a modelled 8 minutes, source: OSRM over OpenStreetMap data, read August 26, 2026 from central Funchal. It also has no chain supermarket among the addresses recorded for the municipality, and it is measurably cooler and cloudier than the city below it.
Why is Monte so much greener than the seafront?
Because it sits in the cloud band. The trade-wind layer normally forms between 600–800 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 and about about 1,600 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 in winter and lower in summer, producing fog drip as well as rain. The gardens the parish is known for exist for the same reason the washing takes longer to dry.
Where this came from
- SESARAM: Diretório de serviços — centros de saúde. sesaram.pt/portal/utente/diretorio-de-servicos/centr Read August 26, 2026.
- SESARAM: Urgência — horário dos serviços. sesaram.pt/portal/utente/urgencia/horario-dos-servic Read August 26, 2026.
- SIGA, Governo Regional da Madeira: Renumeração das carreiras para três dígitos, em vigor desde 09/03/2026. siga.madeira.gov.pt/noticias/show/2069 Read August 26, 2026.
- Pingo Doce: Store locator API (national store list). pingodoce.pt/wp-content/themes/pingodoce/ajax/pd-ajax. Read August 26, 2026.
- Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade): Prada et al., Disponibilidades Hídricas da Ilha da Madeira. geodiversidade.madeira.gov.pt/images/documentos/Publicacoes/Madeira/Dis Read August 26, 2026.
- DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira: Temperatura do ar anual, 2000–2025 (série retrospetiva, dados meteorológicos). estatistica.madeira.gov.pt/download-now/ambiente-territorio/dados-me Read August 26, 2026.
- DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira: Velocidade e rumo do vento, 2012–2025 (série retrospetiva, dados meteorológicos). estatistica.madeira.gov.pt/download-now/ambiente-territorio/dados-me Read August 26, 2026.
- Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API: Ground elevation at the centre point and four points about 700 m away. api.open-meteo.com/v1/elevation Read August 26, 2026.
- DREM / INE: Censos 2021, resultados definitivos — Quadro 10, resident population by geographic location. estatistica.madeira.gov.pt/en/download-now-3/social-gb/popcondsoc-gb Read August 26, 2026.
- OSRM over OpenStreetMap data: Free-flow driving route — modelled output, not a measured journey. router.project-osrm.org/route/v1/driving/-16.9037938,32.676335;-1 Read August 26, 2026.
- OSRM over OpenStreetMap data: Free-flow driving route — modelled output, not a measured journey. router.project-osrm.org/route/v1/driving/-16.9037938,32.676335;-1 Read August 28, 2026.