🇲🇬Madagascar

Madagascar spans 11°57′–25°36′S as the world's fourth-largest island (approximately 587,041 km²) in the southwestern Indian Ocean off East Africa, separated from mainland Mozambique by the 400 km Mozambique Channel: an evolutionary climate laboratory with extraordinary endemism (lemurs, baobabs, fossa) shaped by 88 million years of isolation.

Topography is dominated by a central highland plateau (Ankaratra, Andringitra) running north–south, the volcanic Tsaratanana massif containing the country's highest peak Maromokotro at 2,876 m, eastern escarpments dropping abruptly to a narrow wet rainforest coast, and the dry spiny west and south sloping toward the Mozambique Channel.

This exceptional topography produces an extraordinary climate spectrum: tropical rainforest (Af) on the wet eastern coast, tropical monsoon (Am) on the central east, subtropical highland (Cwa/Cwb) in Antananarivo and the central plateau, tropical savanna (Aw) on the western lowlands, and hot semi-arid (BSh) and even hot desert (BWh) tendencies in the spiny southwest (Tuléar/Toliara).

Antananarivo at 1,276 m sees July highs of 20°C and lows of 11°C and January highs of 26°C with about 1,200 mm rainfall almost entirely in the austral summer. Toamasina (Tamatave) on the wet east coast sees highs of 25°C in July and 31°C in January, with nights of 17°C and 23°C, and 3,300 mm. Mahajanga (Majunga) on the northwest coast sees highs of about 31°C in both July and January, with nights of 19°C and 24°C, and about 1,400 mm.

Toliara (Tuléar) on the dry southwest coast sees highs of 28°C in July and 33°C in January, with nights of 15°C and 24°C, and 360 mm, an arid climate. Antsiranana (Diego Suarez) in the far north sees highs of 29°C in July and 31°C in January, with nights of 20°C and 23°C, and about 950 mm. Andringitra has recorded −8°C, Madagascar's lowest temperature, and sees snow in some years.

Major events include the severe Tropical Cyclone Batsirai (February 2022), Cyclone Freddy (February–March 2023, the longest-lived tropical cyclone on record, killing 17 people in Madagascar) and Cyclone Gezani (February 2026, which killed at least 59 people and devastated Toamasina), the severe 2021–22 southern kéré drought-and-famine that the UN World Food Programme warned could become the first famine caused by climate change, recurrent severe southwestern Indian Ocean cyclone strikes (Geralda 1994, Eline 2000, Gafilo 2004), and ongoing eastern rainforest deforestation.

Our archive covers 7 Malagasy cities with daily ERA5 reanalysis data going back to 1940. The hottest July afternoons are in Mahajanga, with average highs around 28.9°C, while Antsirabe has the coldest January nights, with average lows near 15.7°C. Comparing the last decade against the 1940–1970 baseline, mean temperatures across these cities have risen by about 1.2°C.