Having been here for almost 18 months I think we have just about got the hang of the seasons and weather in Mozambique. So, I thought a blog about the weather would be popular with our British friends and family back home. Although it seems the weather is as much a topic of conversation here as it is in the UK. The weather is much less variable day to day here, but the local people seem quite fussy about what is an acceptable temperature.
With us being in the southern hemisphere the seasons are turned on their head, with June and July being mid-winter and December and January being mid-summer. There is also then the wet season and dry season here. The wet season is the height of summer probably December to February. The rest of the time is the dry season.
The wet season
So what’s it like in the wet season? Firstly, very hot and very humid. Most days are in the mid-30s but on hot days it can get up to the low 40s. Somewhere to swim, some air conditioning or a good sea breeze are really essential at this time of year. What we found bizarre about the wet season, is how generally dry it is. During the wet season, most days are clear hot and sunny. Usually with uninterrupted sunshine. If we’re at home, we’ll need air conditioning to be able to sleep and relax inside. And we’ll usually head out to the pool a couple of times a day. The pool isn’t heated, but at this time of year, it’s quite warm. It’s certainly a long way off being cool as you jump on. On really hot spells it can start to feel a little like a hot tub.
At this time of year, we’ll spend almost all our time in the shade. If we head to the beach we’ll need to take some sort of shelter, because it’s simply too hot without it. What tends to happen is that after a week or so of clear settled hot weather, the temperature and humidity will start to shoot up. This is when it tends to get into the 40s and a little unpleasant. But that usually lasts a day or two before the clouds start to build, the thunder starts to rumble and a storm comes in.
The wet season isn’t wet constantly it’s wet in bursts. When the storm breaks, it’s serious. Thunder rumbles almost none stop and sheet lightning can be as frequent as a flashing street lamp. The rain is a deluge. If you go out in the rain, and it’s fun too, so we tend to, you are soaked to the skin in seconds. Our back yard, which is largely tiles, but contains a good few drains, fills up to ankle depth as litres of water pour off the house and the garage every second making it deeper and deeper. The storms often break at the end of the day and it’s often as Imogen’s heading to bed that it all kicks off. The kids love to go out in it, once Imogen has got over how scary the thunder is. They will usually head out, get extra soaked by drains from the roof, bounce on the trampoline in the rain, and very often end up in the swimming pool fully clothed, as they’re soaked anyway. Once Harriett went in in her waterproof coat, not that it kept her dry at all in the deluge. The storm is powerful and I’ve had the car alarm set off from the shock wave from a nearby bolt of lightning. When the centre of the storm gets really close it can get a little worrying.
The storms cause chaos on the local roads and in the local communities. Although Mozambique is generally flat that are quite a few slopes in Maputo, it’s built on land rising up away from the sea. The central city is all tarmac roads, but as soon as you move away from the core centre there are more and more sand roads. Some of these are on slopes and sometimes they wash away and collapse. The last big storm this year saw one sand road wash onto a tarmac road and bury it several feet deep in the sand. Diggers had to come along and remove all of the sand. It was put back on the sand road, ready to wash away again next time. Most sand roads will spill some sand out onto the tarmac roads when it rains. In the flat areas of town, nothing drains well. I was going to one of the large supermarkets in the city during one set of rain and for several kilometres, the road and all the junctions were simply under several feet of water.
There is lots of casual housing in Mozambique, especially around Maputo. Some of these areas are fine in the rain, while others are badly prone to flooding. This year one area on the way out of town had standing water in and around houses for months.
During the wet season, everything goes very green and the plants get a big boost.
The dry season
Outside of the months of December to February is the dry season. The odd storm does rumble on in March and April, but then it does calm right down and there is very little rain until the wet season again. It does rain sometimes. More often in the dry season, it might be a day of drizzle or the odd shower. But as in the wet season, the default weather is warm, sunny and clear. Either side of the wet season is lovely and warm, but without getting the crazy heat. Through March and April the intense heat dies down, but it’s still shorts and t-shirt weather every day and warm enough to use the pool. As it gets through to May the pool gets less use the temperature is more in the high twenties and low thirties during the day. Again, we still spend most of the time in the shade. Then June and July are into winter. Mozambicans are wrapped up well in woollen wraps and woolly hats on many days. On sunny days in winter it peaks in the high twenties. But that is in the middle of the day. Evenings and mornings are often quite cool. This winter seems colder than last. Last year a hoodie and a pair of jeans was plenty to deal with the cooler weather. But this year the evening has often dropped right down to 12, so really quite cold (for Mozambique). In our first winter, I got caught out on a trip out to Maragra. As usual, I took only shorts and T-shirts only to find it got quite cold.
Once it gets through to August it’s starting to warm again. Last year Harriett’s birthday (10th September) was our official opening of the pool for the year. It then gradually gets warmer and warmer as the months go on heading for the overbearing heat of December.
Overall
In general, when you get up it’s pretty likely to be sunny, and always warm enough to eat your meals outside (albeit with the aid of a hoodie in the middle of winter). Some days of summer it gets just too hot to do anything outside except go in the pool, but that’s usually just before a storm breaks. It is a pretty nice climate out here, and I think we may get a shock when we go back to the UK.