Algiers month by month — at a glance
Hover each month for the summary. Click to pin it.
01 Sixty-four days
Key moments at a glance
18.8 °C, 39 mm of rain and 300.7 hours of sun, with the coast still green.
23.9 °C in the air, 27.5 mm and 267 hours of sun. The heat is over, the swimming is not.
102.7 mm over 9.2 days: almost seventy times July's rainfall.
The data come from Houari Boumediene airport, 1991–2020 normals, with extremes collected since 1838. The annual mean is 18.2 °C and sunshine 2,777.1 hours a year. The classification is textbook Mediterranean: Csa on the Köppen scale.
The distribution is what to look at. November, December and January add up to 273.3 millimetres: 45% of the year's water in three months. June, July and August add up to 20.7. It is the same city under two different regimes, and the calendar separates them with unusual sharpness.
02 Summer and its record
August is the warmest month, at a daily mean of 26.6 °C and a mean high of 32.9; July follows with 32.1. Those sound reasonable for a Mediterranean capital, and in fact they are: the sea breeze moderates the city on almost every day.
Almost every day. On 21 July 2023 the thermometer reached 48.7 degrees, the record of a series that begins in 1838.
That is the nuance worth knowing: the average is kind and the extreme is not. When the wind turns and air arrives from the interior instead of from the sea, the city can go from 32 to over 45 degrees in a matter of hours, and the slope it is built on offers nowhere to shelter.
03 Winter is not cold, it is wet
January has a mean of 11.3 °C and highs of 17.1. That is a mild winter by any measure. But it is also the least sunny month of the year — 139.5 hours, a little over four and a half a day — and it brings 84.2 millimetres over 8.4 days.
The month genuinely worth dodging is November: 102.7 millimetres over 9.2 days, the year's maximum, with only 153 hours of sunshine. In a city of sloping streets and steps, a twenty-millimetre downpour turns the route into a watercourse.
Cold, on the other hand, barely exists: the series record is −3.3 °C, and January's mean lows stay at 5.5. You do not need winter clothing; you need a waterproof.
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04 The two windows
The first runs from March to May. May is the year's best month without argument: a mean of 18.8 °C, 39 millimetres and 300.7 hours of sun, with the Mitidja and the hills still green before they dry out. April is close behind.
The second is September and October. September gives a mean of 23.9 °C with 27.5 millimetres and 267 hours of sun, and it has an advantage the table does not show: the sea is still warm from the whole summer. October drops to 20.4 but rainfall is already up to 51.5 millimetres.
If you can only come in summer, it is no disaster: August's mean is 26.6 degrees and the city works. But plan the day allowing for the fact that one day in several can go above 40, and have an indoor plan for that afternoon.
