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Antananarivo month by month — at a glance
Hover each month for the summary. Click to pin it.
01 Fifty-eight times
Key moments at a glance
7.5 mm over one rain day, 249.5 hours of sun and 23.9 °C highs.
251 hours of sun, the year's peak, with only 39.3 mm of rain.
The driest month: 5.4 mm and 1.1 rain days in the whole month.
312.3 mm over almost 17 rain days. The peak of the wet season.
The year is organised into two well-defined blocks. The wet season runs from November to March, at 117.1, 226.0, 312.3, 236.6 and 156.2 millimetres: between them they account for more than ninety per cent of the annual total, which is 1,171.4 millimetres. The dry season runs from April to October, and inside it there are four months with almost no rain.
Rain days tell it even better than millimetres. July records 0.9 rain days a month; August, 1.1; September, 1.0. That is, one rain day a month. January records 16.8 and February 14.3. The annual total is 79.8 days, practically all concentrated in five months.
02 The sun barely notices
Rainfall varies fifty-eight-fold between months. Sunshine varies by less than one and a half times. Here the only variable that matters is water.
This is what sets this city apart from other tropical capitals. Mean sunshine runs from 178 hours in February to 251 in October, and the year totals 2,626 hours. Even at the peak of the rains, January reaches 210.5 hours: more than many European summer months.
The explanation lies in the form of the rain. These are afternoon convective storms that build over the Highlands, unload hard for a while and break up. The morning is usually clear even in January. It is not a sky closed for weeks; it is a sky that breaks daily at a fairly predictable hour.
03 The nights of the dry season
There is a trade-off in the dry season worth bearing in mind when packing, and it is this calendar's only real complication. The city sits at 1,280 metres, and in the dry months the nights genuinely cool down: the mean low is 11.6 degrees in June, 10.7 in July and 10.9 in August.
By day there is no problem: the mean high stays between 20.4 and 21.6 degrees in that same quarter, and rises to 23.9 and 26.0 in September and October. The issue is the daily range, around ten degrees, and dawn, which in the depth of the austral winter is genuinely chilly.
Relative humidity follows the calendar and helps how it feels: it drops to 69 % in October and 70 % in September, against 80 % in February. The dry months not only have less water, they also breathe better.
04 Which month to pick
September and October are the two best months, and it is not close. September: 7.5 millimetres, one rain day, 249.5 hours of sun and 23.9 degrees by day. October: 39.3 millimetres, 251 hours of sun — the year's maximum — and 26.0 degrees, with nights recovered to 14.3.
April and May are the other good window, on the far side of winter: 44.6 and 14.7 millimetres, with highs of 25.5 and 23.5 degrees and nights of 15.9 and 14.0. August is as dry as September but with nights three degrees colder; if you do not mind an early start in a coat, it works perfectly well.
The months to avoid are December, January and February: 226.0, 312.3 and 236.6 millimetres, between 13.6 and 16.8 rain days a month, and February additionally with the annual sunshine minimum. March is already workable at 156.2 millimetres, but it still rains one day in three. And November is the hinge month: 117.1 millimetres but still 232.7 hours of sun, so it can turn out well.
