Module 041
Weather Portraits
Eight cities. Twelve months. One country that holds both Africa's coldest recorded temperature and some of its hottest. Morocco stretches from Atlantic fog to Saharan furnace — a 73.5°C swing contained in a single nation.
Right Now
Live conditions across all eight cities. Data from Open-Meteo, updated every 15 minutes.
National Extremes
City Climate Portraits
Each ring is a year. Inner circle = low temperature, outer ring = high. The colour is the heat. Toggle the satellite view to see Morocco from space today.
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Hottest major city. 49.6°C in 2012 was Morocco's verified national record. Summers regularly exceed 40°C. The chergui wind from the Sahara can add 10–15°C in hours.
Six Climate Zones in One Country
Most countries have one or two climate zones. Morocco has six — from the Mediterranean coast to the true Sahara, a journey of 1,000km and 73.5°C of temperature range.
Mild, oceanic, foggy summers, cool sea current
Hot dry summers, mild wet winters, European feel
Continental extremes — no ocean buffer. Scorching summers, cold winters
Snow, cedar forests, sub-zero winters. Africa's coldest record.
Desert begins. Extreme diurnal range. Under 100mm rain. Date palm oases.
Hyper-arid. 40°C+ summers, near-freezing desert nights. Sand, stone, wind.
Reading Notes
The 73.5°C Country
Africa's coldest recorded temperature belongs to Morocco: −23.9°C at Ifrane, 11 February 1935. A mountain town at 1,665m in the Middle Atlas, covered in snow half the year. Morocco's hottest verified temperature: 49.6°C at Marrakech, 17 July 2012. Between these two numbers: 73.5°C. A single country that spans the full thermal range of an entire continent.
The Canary Current
A cold ocean current flows south along Morocco's Atlantic coast, creating summer fog from Essaouira to Agadir. The paradox: the sea is colder in the south than the north. Agadir — at latitude 30°N, nearly Saharan — stays cooler than Tangier in summer. This current is why Morocco's Atlantic coast feels like California, not like the desert 100km inland.
The Chergui
The Saharan wind. In Arabic, chergui (شرقي) means "eastern." It blows from the desert across the Atlas Mountains, sometimes arriving without warning. In Marrakech, a chergui episode can raise temperatures 10–15°C in a single afternoon. In Casablanca, it pushes above 40°C — a city that normally never exceeds 28°C. The chergui is why Morocco's record highs are always so much higher than its averages.
"Ifrane and Errachidia are 200 kilometres apart. One holds Africa's coldest recorded temperature. The other regularly exceeds 42°C. Between them: the Atlas Mountains — a wall of rock that separates two climates, two ecosystems, two ways of living. Morocco is not one weather. It is six, stacked vertically."
Sources & Attribution
Temperature and rainfall averages: Climates to Travel (WMO 1991–2020 normals); climate-data.org (1991–2021); Weather Spark. Record temperatures: Ifrane −23.9°C (11 Feb 1935): Wikipedia/Ifrane; Current Results Africa extremes. Marrakech 49.6°C (17 Jul 2012): Weather Underground (Christopher C. Burt). Agadir-Inezgane 50.4°C (11 Aug 2023): Morocco World News; disputed/unverified. Köppen classifications: Wikipedia/Climate of Morocco. Sunshine hours: worlddata.info; weather-and-climate.com. Warming trend (+1.6°C 1990–2024): worlddata.info (German Weather Service archives). Climate zones: Encyclopedia of the Environment (Hanchane Mohamed, 2025). Live weather: Open-Meteo API (open-meteo.com). Satellite imagery: NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), MODIS Terra Corrected Reflectance. All data editorial estimates unless otherwise sourced.
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