Climatology
This page presents Eswatini's climate context for the current climatology, 1991-2020, derived from observed, historical data. Information should be used to build a strong understanding of current climate conditions in order to appreciate future climate scenarios and projected change. You can visualize data for the current climatology through spatial variation, the seasonal cycle, or as a time series. Analysis is available for both annual and seasonal data. Data presentation defaults to national-scale aggregation, however sub-national data aggregations can be accessed by clicking within a country, on a sub-national unit. Other historical climatologies can be selected from the Time Period dropdown list.
Observed, historical data is produced by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of University of East Anglia. Data is presented at a 0.5º x 0.5º (50km x 50km) resolution.
ESwatini lies at the transition lines of major climatic zones, being influenced by air masses from different origins, such as the equatorial convergence zone (summer rains), subtropical eastern continental moist maritime (onshore flow with occasional cyclones), dry continental tropical and marine west Mediterranean (winter rains, with rare snow). Thus, the country’s agro-ecological zones result in differentiated climatic conditions across its diverse topography and ecosystems, ranging from sub-humid and temperate in the highvelds to semi-arid and warm in the lowvelds. Mean annual rainfall ranges from approximately 1,500 mm in the northern Highveld to 500 mm in the southern lowland. The rainiest periods for the country tend to occur in November to February, overlapping with the typically hottest period annually. The mean monthly temperature of the country has ranged between 15°C and 23.4°C. During the same time period, the mean monthly precipitation of the country varies from 11.9 mm in June to 143.3 mm in January, which resulted in an annual total average rainfall of over 800 mm, for the latest climatology, 1991-2020.