Climate Trend
Access reliable climate data and trends to better understand past and future changes.
Click here to know what we mean about climate trends
Click here to know what we mean about climate trends
What we mean about climate trends?
Malawi has experienced real changes in the climate over the past few decades. The temperature has been going up. The rain has been coming at us unexpectedly, sometimes very harshly. It gets really hot from September to November. We have more heat waves, meaning hotter for longer. The rain is really important for farming in Malawi but it has been hard to predict when it will come. Sometimes the rain comes late, and sometimes we get a lot of rain in a short time which can cause floods and landslides like when the country suffered from Cyclones Ana in 2022 and Freddy in March 2023. And, at the same time, increasingly, some places do not get enough rain, which makes it hard to grow crops and have enough water for ourselves, our crops and animals, and our towns and cities.
These changes in the climate are affecting Malawi’s environment, its economy and its people. Most Malawians depend on farming and farming depends a lot on the rain. When we have droughts or floods or when the seasons change, it can be hard to grow food. This means that people do not have food to eat. more often than in the past. Extreme weather, like huge storms, can also cause losses and damages, breaking our roads, tearing down power lines and destroying buildings. Sometimes, people have to leave their homes and find makeshift shelters. So in this climate trends section, we look at how the climate is changing and by how much.