Libya
Weather locations in Libya
Choose a location in Libya to view its available forecast products.
Libya illustrated weather map
16 mapped locations
Only locations with a verified coordinate are marked. The complete location list is below.
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Climate of Libya
Country climate guideLibya is the fourth-largest country in Africa, and roughly nine tenths of it is desert. A thin Mediterranean coastline runs for nearly 1,900 kilometres, behind which the land rises to the Jebel Akhdar plateau and then falls away into the Sahara. The result is one of the sharpest climate contrasts anywhere: a mild, winter-rain Mediterranean strip in the north and a hot desert regime covering almost all of the country to the south.
Main climate types
Three zones are usually recognised. The coastal strip, from the Tunisian to the Egyptian border, has a hot semi-arid Mediterranean climate with rain concentrated in winter. The Jebel Akhdar and Jebel Gharbi highlands behind Tripoli and Benghazi are greener and wetter, a rare Mediterranean woodland pocket in the desert. South of that, the regime is a hot desert climate, classed BWh, covering the whole interior including the Fezzan and the Sand Sea.
Temperatures
Tripoli's monthly means run from about 14 °C in January to about 24 °C in July, while the interior sees daytime maximums around 45 °C in the hottest months. The desert is defined by its large daily range: summer days are extremely hot, and the hours after sunset are cool enough to need a jumper. In winter the desert nights in places such as Ghadames and Kufra can fall to around 5 °C, and the hot Saharan wind known as the scirocco occasionally reaches the coast.
Rainfall
Rainfall is the country's scarcest resource. Tripoli receives about 250 to 350 mm a year, with January the wettest month, and Benghazi rather more; Tobruk, further east, gets roughly 100 mm. Inland, the Fezzan and the south barely register at all. Almost no river or permanent lake exists, and most water is ancient groundwater in the Nubian sandstone aquifer, on which the main towns depend.
When to go
The coast is best visited between November and March, when daytime temperatures make sightseeing at sites such as Leptis Magna and Cyrene comfortable. Summer is hot, dry and often windy. For anyone wanting the desert rather than the coastline, the ergs of the Fezzan and near-desert oases such as Ghadames are reachable year-round, but the summer heat inland should be taken seriously.