Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, sits on the Indian Ocean coast of the Horn of Africa, on a low sandy plain at approximately 2.05°N, 45.34°E. Despite lying almost on the equator, it has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh) — hot and humid but strikingly dry — with two brief rainy seasons and steady coastal temperatures.

There is no summer in the temperate sense: temperatures stay hot and steady, with daytime highs around 30–32°C and warm, humid nights, tempered by sea breezes. The main rains, the gu, fall from April to June; the cooler, breezier months of July and August, when the strong southwest monsoon blows, bring hazy skies and cooler seas but little rain.

There is no true winter, but the hottest, most humid stretch comes from around February to April, before the gu rains break. A shorter second rainy season, the deyr, arrives in October and November, and the drier months from December to March bring warm, sunny, breezy conditions — the pleasantest time of year.

Mogadishu is remarkably dry for an equatorial coastal city, receiving only around 400–450 mm of rain a year, delivered in two brief pulses — the gu from April to June and the deyr in October and November — while the rest of the year is nearly rainless. Drought is a chronic threat. Live rainfall, humidity, and pressure readings for the city are shown in the panels above.

The Horn of Africa is strikingly arid despite its equatorial position, because the monsoon winds blow parallel to the coast rather than onto it, carrying their moisture past rather than releasing it — leaving Mogadishu with a fraction of the rain that drenches equatorial Africa further west, and leaving Somalia acutely vulnerable to recurrent drought.

To follow any single measurement in Mogadishu 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.