🇦🇴Angola

Angola stretches from roughly 4°S to 18°S along the southwestern Atlantic coast of Africa, encompassing three broad climate belts: a hot tropical savanna interior plateau (Köppen Aw), an arid coastal strip from Benguela south — the northern extension of the Namib Desert — shaped by the cold Benguela Current (BWh/BSh), and tropical rainforest in the Cabinda enclave and parts of the north (transitioning from Aw to Am). The central plateau, rising between 1,000 and 1,800 metres in elevation, moderates temperatures across the interior, while the narrow coastal plain remains hot but surprisingly dry year-round.

The capital Luanda, despite its tropical latitude, receives only about 330 mm of rain annually — a semi-arid regime locked in by the cold Benguela Current's stabilising effect on coastal air masses. Inland, the plateau brings relief: Huambo and Lubango, at elevations near 1,700 metres, experience July mean temperatures around 14–16°C, with occasional frost on the highest peaks.

Rainfall gradients are steep: the northeast receives 1,400–1,800 mm per year, the central Bié Plateau around 1,450 mm, while Namibe (Moçâmedes) on the southern coast records less than 50 mm annually — true desert conditions. Angola's climate follows a single wet season, October to April, driven by the northward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, followed by the cacimbo — a cool, misty dry season from May to September. ENSO events strongly modulate rainfall, intensifying drought cycles in the south.

Our archive covers 47 Angolan cities with daily ERA5 reanalysis data going back to 1940. The warmest July averages occur in Dundo, around 32.7°C, while Lubango records the coldest January nights near 13.7°C. Comparing the last decade against the 1940–1970 baseline, mean temperatures across these cities have risen by about 1.4°C.