This area of Mozambique is subtropical, lying below the tropic of Capricorn.
For those coming from Europe and the US, the seasons don’t really map across from the seasons you are used to. There are two main seasons in Southern Mozambique.
The wet season December to March
The dry season April to November
The wet season
Despite its name, the wet season is not that wet on a day to day basis. But a lot of water falls during the storms. That means the average day in the wet season is hot, clear skied and sunny. This is the hottest time of year and when humidity is at its most intense. If you are not used to hot and humid weather, this is not the best time of year to visit. Cooler days tend to be in the mid 30s celsius, sunny and not too humid. The temperature then tends to increase, moving towards a storm. Over the space of 3 or 4 days the temperature and humidity will increase, often reaching over 40 degrees with an unpleasantly high humidity. These increases in heat and humidity tend to lead to a storm. Storms are long, violent and create vast amounts of rain, thunder and lightning. They most commonly happen in the late evening, although sometimes they do happen in the day or middle of the night. Due to fragility of the country's road and transport systems, storms often cause travel disruption for a day. Roads can remain flooded for days in cities and it can be longer in rural areas.
What to do once inside the park depends on your next destination:
The dry season
As the name suggests, the dry season tends to be dry. There are usually few storms during the dry season and little rain. Although, especially in the coolest months, there can be periods of rain. The middle of the dry season; June, July and August, is the coolest time of year with temperatures usually in the mid twenties. On cooler cloudier days the temperature does drop to the low twenties and sometimes even down to 17 or 18 degrees. Either side of this period the weather is warmer, either cooling from the wet season (April to June) or warming to the wet season (September to December). The temperature gradually increases or decreases during this time but is on average around the low thirties.
Weather and forecasts
Generally the weather is sunny most of the time. Weather forecasts tend to be inaccurate and I can’t recommend any app as being more accurate than another. In general if a forecast predicts rain or cloud, it will usually arrive, although when is much harder to predict. But 90% of days are warm and sunny.
Best times to visit
From a weather and temperature point of view I recommend the dry season as the best time of year to visit, but avoiding the coldest couple of months would probably be best.
