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Guwahati, the largest city of Assam and gateway to northeast India, sits on the banks of the Brahmaputra River in the Assam valley, hemmed in by hills at approximately 26.14°N, 91.74°E. It has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa) bordering tropical savanna — warm, humid and rainy — though sheltered enough in the valley to be far drier than the drenched hills around it.
Summer, from April to June, is warm and increasingly humid rather than searing, with highs around 31–33°C — the northeast does not reach the extremes of the plains. Pre-monsoon thunderstorms called Bordoisila lash the valley with strong winds, thunder and rain in April and May, before the monsoon proper arrives in June and runs to September, bringing heavy rain and flooding.
Winter, from November to February, is mild, dry and pleasant, with January the coolest month — highs around 24–25°C and cool nights near 10–12°C. Fog is frequent on cold mornings in the valley, and rain is scarce. This mild, dry, sunny stretch is comfortably the best time of year in Assam.
Guwahati receives around 1,600–1,700 mm of rain a year, most of it from the southwest monsoon between May and September; sheltered in the Brahmaputra valley, it is notably drier than the surrounding northeast, where totals exceed 2,000 mm — and where nearby Cherrapunji, in Meghalaya, receives over 11,000 mm, among the wettest places on earth. Live rainfall, humidity, and pressure readings for the city are shown in the panels above.
Guwahati's most serious hazard is the Brahmaputra: monsoon rains across the vast Himalayan catchment swell the river until it floods the Assam valley, an almost annual event that displaces hundreds of thousands. The city's pre-monsoon Bordoisila storms — violent squalls of wind, thunder and rain in April and May — are another distinctive feature of the northeastern spring.
To follow any single measurement in Guwahati 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.