🇮🇱Israel

Israel lies between 29°29′ and 33°20′N, a Levantine country covering approximately 22,072 km² on the eastern Mediterranean shore and producing a remarkable climate gradient compressed into only 470 km north to south. From the snowy slopes of Mount Hermon at 2,224 m on the Israeli side — the country's highest peak — and the verdant Galilee in the north, the landscape descends through the central highlands of Samaria and Judea, the coastal plain stretching past Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Ashdod, the Negev desert covering the southern half, and the Dead Sea Rift plunging to −430 m, the lowest land surface on Earth.

The result is a tapestry of climate zones: hot-summer Mediterranean Csa on the coast and central highlands, hot semi-arid BSh in the lower-Galilee rain shadow and around the Sea of Galilee, hot desert BWh across the Negev and Arava, and cold semi-arid to oceanic on the Hermon massif with reliable winter snowpack.

Tel Aviv averages 14°C in January and 27°C in August with 540 mm of rainfall falling almost entirely October through April; Jerusalem at 760 m is notably cooler at 8°C in January and 24°C in August with 540 mm and occasional winter snow; Haifa on the wetter northern coast records 14°C in January and 27°C in August with 530 mm; Eilat in the southern Arava exemplifies extreme desert conditions at 16°C in January and 33°C in August with only 23 mm annual precipitation, among the world's driest inhabited sites; Beersheba sits at the desert margin with 11°C in January and 27°C in August and 200 mm; the Sea of Galilee shore reaches 13°C in January and 31°C in August; and Mount Hermon averages around −5°C with deep winter snowpack.

The all-time temperature range extends from approximately −13.8°C recorded on Mount Hermon in February 1950 to 54.0°C at Tirat Tzvi in June 1942, though the latter remains disputed and the verified record stands at 49.5°C recorded at Eilat in June 1942.

Climate events include the 2010 Carmel forest fire that killed 44 people, the multi-year Eastern Mediterranean drought from 1998 to 2012 that drove the Sea of Galilee to record low levels, affecting national water security and freshwater availability. Mediterranean heatwaves have intensified in recent decades, while the Negev wadis experience growing flash-flood risk as rare rainfall events become more intense. Coral bleaching at Eilat's Red Sea reef has increased under rising water temperatures.

Our archive covers 0 Israeli cities with daily ERA5 reanalysis data going back to 1940.