Those swirling lines and triangular symbols on a weather map are a language. Once you can read it, a single chart tells …
Sharing your station’s data to networks like Weather Underground and the Ambient network is free, easy, and turns your h…
Measuring air temperature accurately is far harder than it looks, and most home stations get it wrong for one avoidable …
Fog is simply a cloud at ground level, but the different ways it forms explain why some mornings are socked in and other…
A heat dome can lock a region into days of dangerous, record-breaking heat. The mechanism behind it is a particular trap…
La Niña reshuffles weather patterns across the globe in broadly predictable ways. Here’s what the pattern is, and the ki…
Oran, Algeria's second city and a major Mediterranean port, sits on the northwestern coast of the country on the Gulf of Oran, backed by hills at approximately 35.70°N, 0.63°W. It has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa) — hot, dry summers and mild, wetter winters — moderated by the sea, with abundant sunshine, low rainfall and warm coastal breezes.
Summer, from June to September, is hot, dry and sunny, with July and August the hottest months — average highs around 30–32°C — tempered by sea breezes off the Mediterranean, though heat spells can climb well higher when the sirocco blows in hot, dusty air from the Sahara. Rain is essentially absent for months, and clear, sunny skies dominate the long, dry season.
Winter, from December to February, is mild and the wettest season, with January the coolest month — average highs around 17°C and mild nights near 7–9°C, rarely approaching frost thanks to the sea. Most of the year's rain falls in these months, brought by Mediterranean weather systems, along with cooler, greyer, breezy spells, while snow is unknown on the coast.
Oran is dry, receiving only around 350–400 mm of rain a year, almost all of it in the cool months from November to March, while the summer is essentially rainless; its position on the western Algerian coast, in the lee of the Atlas ranges, keeps totals low. Live rainfall, humidity, and pressure readings for the city are shown in the panels above.
Oran's weather is classic western Mediterranean — baking, rainless summers and mild, wetter winters — with the sea softening the extremes along the coast. Its most distinctive event is the sirocco, a hot, dry, dust-laden wind blowing north off the Sahara, which can raise temperatures dramatically and haze the sky, most often in late summer and early autumn.
To follow any single measurement in Oran more closely, use our live instruments: the online barometer for atmospheric pressure, the thermometer for temperature, the hygrometer for humidity, the anemometer for wind speed, the wind vane for wind direction, and the rain gauge for rainfall.