🇸🇩Sudan

Sudan (approximately 1,861,484 km²) spans Northeast Africa from roughly 9°–22°N, bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea (853 km coastline) to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, and Libya to the northwest.

The country exhibits extreme climatic diversity: the northern third falls within the hyperarid Sahara Desert (Köppen BWh) where Wadi Halfa can go many years without rainfall and temperatures routinely exceed 40°C for four to six months, the central Sahel belt transitions through semi-arid steppe (Köppen BSh) with rainfall concentrated July-September, and the far southern savanna has tropical wet-and-dry conditions.

The Nile River and its two tributaries, the Blue Nile flowing from Ethiopian highlands (accounting for most of the Nile flow during the summer floods) and the White Nile draining Central African lakes, provide the main perennial water source across this vast landscape. Temperatures are high year-round with dramatic diurnal swings; the highest peak, Deriba Caldera (3,042 m) in the Marrah Mountains of Darfur, offers relief from the severe heat.

Khartoum's January nights average about 15°C (can drop to 7.5°C) and May-June highs about 41°C (can reach 48°C), with about 120 mm annual rainfall concentrated July-September. Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast sees daytime highs from about 27°C in winter to 43°C in August, with nights from about 20°C to 30°C, and only about 80 mm rainfall. Atbara receives only 50–60 mm annually, with showers mostly in July and August. Al-Fashir in Darfur experiences harsh Sahel conditions.

Northern desert regions near Wadi Halfa and the Egyptian border can pass many years without any rainfall whatsoever, receiving close to 4,000 hours of sunshine annually and maintaining average highs near or above 40°C for about five months, with extremes near 45–50°C.

Sudan experiences recurring floods and droughts. The August–September 2020 Nile floods saw the Blue Nile reach 17.5 m, the highest level in about a century, exceeding records set in 1946 and 1988. The 2020 floods killed over 100 people, destroyed more than 100,000 homes, affected 500,000+ people, and flooded 2.2 million hectares of cropland, destroying 1.1 million tonnes of grain.

The July–August 2024 floods killed 68+ people, destroyed or damaged 12,000+ houses, and damaged about 83,000 hectares of farmland, displacing 44,000+ civilians during an ongoing civil-war humanitarian crisis. Historic droughts in 1972–73 and 1984–85 caused widespread famine across the Sahel belt when monsoons failed. Seasonal haboob dust storms (May–July) create massive sand and clay walls reducing visibility to near-zero, while Sahel desertification has advanced 50–200 km southward since the 1930s.

Our archive covers 23 Sudanese cities with daily ERA5 reanalysis data going back to 1940. The hottest July afternoons are in Atbara, with average highs around 39.4°C, while El Fasher has the coldest January nights, with average lows near 11.6°C. Comparing the last decade against the 1940–1970 baseline, mean temperatures across these cities have risen by about 2.2°C.