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Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, sits on a high plateau in the centre of the country at around 1,700 metres above sea level, ringed by hills and surrounded by semi-desert, at approximately -22.56°S, 17.08°E. Its altitude and aridity give it a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh) — warm, thundery summers and mild, very dry winters — with abundant sunshine.
Summer, from October to April — the austral summer — is warm to hot and the rainy season, with highs around 30–31°C, kept from becoming extreme by the plateau altitude. Dramatic afternoon and evening thunderstorms build in the heat and bring nearly all of the year's rain, though the rains are erratic and often fail. Nights cool markedly.
Winter, from June to August — the austral winter — is mild, dry and brilliantly sunny by day but cold at night, with highs around 21–22°C and nights that regularly drop close to or below freezing, bringing frost. Rain is entirely absent, skies are deep blue, and the huge day-to-night temperature swing is characteristic of the high desert plateau.
Windhoek is very dry, receiving only around 350–370 mm of rain a year, almost all of it in the summer wet season from January to March, while May to September is essentially rainless. The rains are highly erratic and drought is a chronic problem, with the city's dams periodically running critically low. Live rainfall, humidity, and pressure readings for the city are shown in the panels above.
Windhoek's high, arid plateau gives it warm, thundery summers and cold, frosty winter nights beneath famously clear skies. Water is its abiding constraint: rainfall is meagre and erratic, and repeated droughts have brought the capital close to running dry, prompting Namibia to pioneer direct water reclamation — recycling sewage into drinking water — decades before most of the world.
To follow any single measurement in Windhoek 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.