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Weather info for Freetown & Lungi Click the images & gauges for detailed information. . Current Sattelite - Click Current SL Time & Temp: Click for Lungi Forecast

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African Continent

Sierra Leone is almost always hot and humid, but the best time to visit is November-April (the absolute best month is December, when the wind known as harmattan blows in from the desert and dries things out for a short time). Daytime temperatures then average 86 F/30 C. The rest of the year sees more rain and higher humidity -- it can be awfully uncomfortable (rainfall is heaviest July-September, especially heavy in the coastal regions). In the early part of the rainy season, rainstorms blow in primarily in the late afternoon and evening. Later in the season, light rain falls all day. Take a sweater if you're going to higher altitudes. 

In this part of Africa the intertropical belt of cloud and rain migrates northwards and southwards with the apparent movement of the overhead sun but lagging behind by some four to six weeks.

From October to March, during the period of low sun, the weather is generally dry with many fine, hot, sunny days. The season of high sun, from April to September, is the rainy season. The rainfall increases to a peak in July and August and then decreases until rain has almost ceased by November.

In the north of Guinea the rainy season is a little shorter than in Liberia to the south. Along the coast of these three countries, however, there is not much difference in the total annual rainfall, which is heavy everywhere, between 3,500 mm/160 in and 4,000 mm/180 in.

This can be seen by comparing the table for Freetown in Sierra Leone, with those for Conakry in Guinea, and Monrovia in Liberia. 

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The climate of this part of Africa has for long had an unenviable reputation; Sierra Leone was known as 'the white man's grave'. The high death rate among Europeans living there was due more to tropical diseases than to the direct effects of the climate.

There is no doubt, however, that the combination of constant high temperature and humidity makes this an uncomfortable climate. The higher temperatures inland are to some extend mitigated by the lower humidity. The harmattan, a persistent northeast wind, which blows during the dry season, is often dust-laden.

Sunshine amounts are rather low on the coast, particularly during the wet season when they average two to three hours a day. These figures rise inland, particularly in eastern Guinea. During the dry season they rise to eight to nine hours a day inland, but in some places on the coast they may be as low as five to six.

The table for Freetown illustrates conditions around the year in the coastal districts of Sierra Leone.
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