Although the weather in Nairobi is generally speaking very very nice, there has been some surprises. The average highs only vary a few degrees over the year, with February and March being the warmest at 27C and July and August being the coldest at 22C. This doesn't mean though the weather would feel the same all the time and although it would probably be too much to call them seasons there are clear differencies.
The 'summer months' tend to be nice, warm and sunny where as the 'winter months' are cloudy and still quite warm and nice. As the city is high up it might be cloudier in the morning and in the evening but usually by mid-morning the sun burns through. The real difference is seen during the rainy seasons.
There are two different rainy seasons. The "long rains" season occurs from March/April to May/June. The "short rains" season occurs from October to November/December. I though the rain would be different during these two seasons, but apparently the long and short are only in reference to the length of the rainy season. And when it rains, it rains really really hard.
This years short rains was quite something. I've never seen it rain like that, and we have a lot of thunder and lightning too. The rains usually started in the evening, continued over night and morning. The rain came and went, but it was like turning on a faucet. A high pressure shower is a way to describe it. What made it interesting that sometimes it came in waves, you could see that it rained really hard where you were but not far away it was just a drizzle and of course the it changed all the time.
One night it rained so hard, that the ground got too wet causing a landslide taking a long piece of our perimeter wall with it. We woke up at 1:30am when the security team knocked on the door to find out if we are ok, they'd been alarmed by the noise the wall made when it fell. Fixing the wall took weeks which was quite a security risk.
There's no real drainage anywhere either. I heard stories of garages getting filled with water and traffig getting really stuck when the roads were cut by deep water. There were also flash flooding and lot of deaths as unsuspected (or stupid bold) matatu's were washed away drowning everyone in them. The worst things is though that the roads are badly built resulting in huge amount of massive pot holes. Driving here is bad as it is, but now the roads have reached a new level in bumpiness.
The rainy season went as quickly as it came, one morning last week we woke up to clear blue skies and now it's been really nice (and quite hot too). I hope it stays and the rains won't come back before the next season.
The 'summer months' tend to be nice, warm and sunny where as the 'winter months' are cloudy and still quite warm and nice. As the city is high up it might be cloudier in the morning and in the evening but usually by mid-morning the sun burns through. The real difference is seen during the rainy seasons.
There are two different rainy seasons. The "long rains" season occurs from March/April to May/June. The "short rains" season occurs from October to November/December. I though the rain would be different during these two seasons, but apparently the long and short are only in reference to the length of the rainy season. And when it rains, it rains really really hard.
This years short rains was quite something. I've never seen it rain like that, and we have a lot of thunder and lightning too. The rains usually started in the evening, continued over night and morning. The rain came and went, but it was like turning on a faucet. A high pressure shower is a way to describe it. What made it interesting that sometimes it came in waves, you could see that it rained really hard where you were but not far away it was just a drizzle and of course the it changed all the time.
One night it rained so hard, that the ground got too wet causing a landslide taking a long piece of our perimeter wall with it. We woke up at 1:30am when the security team knocked on the door to find out if we are ok, they'd been alarmed by the noise the wall made when it fell. Fixing the wall took weeks which was quite a security risk.
There's no real drainage anywhere either. I heard stories of garages getting filled with water and traffig getting really stuck when the roads were cut by deep water. There were also flash flooding and lot of deaths as unsuspected (or stupid bold) matatu's were washed away drowning everyone in them. The worst things is though that the roads are badly built resulting in huge amount of massive pot holes. Driving here is bad as it is, but now the roads have reached a new level in bumpiness.
The rainy season went as quickly as it came, one morning last week we woke up to clear blue skies and now it's been really nice (and quite hot too). I hope it stays and the rains won't come back before the next season.
