Banjul month by month — at a glance
Hover each month for the summary. Click to pin it.
01 Five and a half millimetres
Key moments at a glance
A mean low of 18.3 °C, the year's lowest, with 0.7 mm of rain.
Not a drop in the whole month and 267 hours of sun: the calendar's peak.
From 244 mm in September to 76, but with the warmest nights: 24.1 °C.
353.6 mm over 15.6 days: almost 39% of the whole year's water.
The annual total is 909.2 millimetres, which is not little. What is exceptional is not the quantity but the concentration: those 909 millimetres fall over 49 rain days a year. That is, it rains on slightly less than one day in seven, and when it rains, it rains hard.
Sunshine follows that logic without surprises. The year totals 2,622.8 hours, and no month falls below 180: even July, in the heart of the wet season, records 182.9. March reaches 266.6. The problem of a permanently closed sky that afflicts other tropical capitals does not exist here.
02 And then, August
The other half of the argument is in the summer. June brings 54.7 millimetres; July, 174.8; August, 353.6; September, 244.1. Those four months take ninety-one per cent of the year's water, and August alone accounts for almost thirty-nine per cent of the total.
Seven months with 5.6 millimetres between them; one single month, August, with 353.6. The same place, the same year, and a difference of sixty-three times.
The transition is abrupt in both directions. From May (2.5 mm) to June (54.7) there is a twenty-two-fold jump; from September (244.1) to October (76.4) rainfall divides by three, and from October to November (1.3) by fifty-eight. The switch is thrown in a matter of weeks.
.jpg?width=1200)
03 What decides is not the rain
With seven consecutive dry months, choosing a month within the good season cannot be decided by water: you have to look at another column. The mean high barely moves — between 31.6 and 34.0 degrees across the whole year — so that is no help either. What really tells one month from another is the low, which is to say the night.
And there the range is real. In January the mean low is 18.3 degrees; in October, 24.1. Almost six degrees of difference, and with very different humidity behind them. December, January and February are the three months in which you sleep well; from June to October, nights never drop below 22.7.
04 Which month to pick
December to February is the best block, and for one specific reason: these are the months with cool nights — mean lows of 20.1, 18.3 and 18.7 degrees — with clear skies and no rain at all. January and February also coincide with the best birdwatching season of the year.
March and April have the strongest argument on paper — zero millimetres and 267 and 252 hours of sunshine — but nights are already up to 19.9 and 20.3 degrees and the daytime heat gets heavier. They remain excellent months, simply a little less comfortable than January.
November works very well if you do not mind heat: 1.3 millimetres of rain and an already clean sky, though with the calendar's highest mean high, 34.0 degrees. And July to September is when to think twice: not because of the sun, which is still there, but because it rains between eleven and sixteen days a month and nights stay glued to 24 degrees at maximum humidity.
,_Kotu_Beach,_Gambia.jpg?width=1600)
