Climatology
This page presents Ghana'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. Data for specific coordinates can be downloaded for in the Data Download page.
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.
Ghana’s climate is tropical and strongly influenced by the West Africa monsoon winds. The climate is generally warm with variable temperatures masked by seasons and elevation. The northern part of the country typically records one rainy season, which begins in May and lasts until September. Southern Ghana records two rainy seasons; major season from April to July and minor from September to November.
- Several climate models have confirmed that temperature has increased by 1.0°C between 1960 and 2003, at an average rate of 0.21°C per decade. The rate of increase has generally been more rapid in the northern parts than in the southern parts.
- Average number of ‘hot’ days per year has increased by 48 (an additional 13.2% of days). The number of hot nights per year increased by 73 (an extra 20% of nights). The frequency of cold days per year has decreased by 12 (3.3% of days). The number of cold nights per year has reduced by 18.5 (5.1% of days).
- Rainfall over Ghana was particularly high in the 1960's, and decreased to particularly low levels in the late 1970's and early 1980's, producing an overall decreasing trend in the period 1960 to 2006, with an average precipitation of 2.3 mm per month (2.4%) per decade.
- There is no evidence of a trend in the proportion of rainfall that has occurred in ‘heavy’ events since 1960.
This section provides the options to visualize historical climate data for different timeframes via map and annual cycle chart.