Serengeti Safari - when to go

The weather is a highly charged subject in the context of planning your holiday, particularly if you happen to come from England and the word rain is mentioned. However, particularly in the Serengeti, the time when things turn green can be one of the most stunning times to visit, and the chance of a bit if rain here and there is well worth risking as this is exactly what the wildebeest are after. The rains bring them back to the Nirvana of the short grass plains where there's plenty of high energy food for everyone and fewer places for predators to hide.

The Serengeti has a near perfect highland climate; cool mornings and evenings, warm sunny days. The sort of climate that prompted Isaak Denison to say (although she was talking about the Kenyan Highlands) that you spring out of bed in the mornings feeling "here I am - where I ought to be."

The year in Northern Tanzania is divided roughly into three chunks. The dry season runs from June to October, the wet between March and May and in between is a period of so called short rains, during which time things turn green. At this time of year there are localised rain showers around, but it's more or less dry.

The average rainfall in the Serengeti is around 800mm per year, although the plains get around a third less than the woodland areas. About half of this rain typically falls between March and May. The coldest time of year is July when temperatures drop as low as around 12 degrees C, and the hottest is October at around 30 Degrees C.

Relative humidity ranges between 15% in the dry season and 40 % in the rains. Of course like everywhere, there's lots of annual variation in climate, for example in 2003 the rains didn't begin until May and then there was nothing like the annual average. This explains why we think mobile camps are such a good idea as they can respond to unusual weather patterns.

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When to go, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Serengeti Safari - when to go