Chad
Weather locations in Chad
Choose a location in Chad to view its available forecast products.
Chad illustrated weather map
13 mapped locations
Only locations with a verified coordinate are marked. The complete location list is below.
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Climate of Chad
Country climate guideChad lies in the heart of the African continent, and being so far from any sea it has a climate that runs from tropical savanna in the south to Sahara desert in the north. There is no coast, no mountain range of consequence and no ocean current to moderate anything, so heat builds through the year and rain falls in a short, violent wet season that the rest of the country can do without.
Main climate types
Roughly a sixth of the country, the south around N'Djamena and Moundou, is classed as tropical savanna, with a single wet season and a dusty, windy dry winter. The middle belt, the Sahelian zone north of about 12 degrees north, is semi-arid steppe. The northern two-thirds is desert proper, an extension of the Sahara, receiving almost nothing and supporting only palms and hardy shrubs. The Tibesti massif rises above 3,000 metres in the far north.
Temperatures
N'Djamena has January means near 26 degrees Celsius and July means near 29, and daytime highs climb above 40 in the hottest months; nights in the dry season drop to around 15. Further north the summer runs longer and the winter is genuinely cool, with daytime highs near 25 and chilly nights. In the desert the annual range of temperature is very large indeed, which is the clearest sign of how far from the sea the country lies.
Rainfall
Annual rainfall is about 600 to 700 millimetres at N'Djamena, concentrated between June and September and falling in heavy thunderstorms. It falls to around 300 millimetres in the Sahelian belt and under 100 in the far north, where the ground is sand, gravel and rock with almost no vegetation. Much of the country therefore has well under 200 millimetres a year, and periods of drought are common in the north.
When to go
Chad is best visited between November and March, when the harmattan haze has passed and the daytime heat is tolerable, though the north is often very cold at night at this time. The wettest months, June to September, close many roads in the south and can make overland travel difficult.