Yemen Weather Radar

Yemen climate

Yemen's climate is remarkably varied for a country often assumed to be uniformly desert. The western highlands, where Sana'a sits at over 2,200 meters elevation, enjoy a temperate climate with summer highs around 25-30°C and cool winters that can drop near freezing at night. These highlands intercept moisture-laden winds from the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, receiving 500-800mm of rainfall annually during two monsoon-influenced rainy seasons in spring and late summer.

The coastal lowlands along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden are drastically different, with extreme heat exceeding 45°C in summer and oppressive humidity. Aden on the southern coast is one of the hottest cities in the world, with year-round temperatures rarely dropping below 25°C even in winter. The eastern desert plateau extending toward Oman receives minimal rainfall and experiences severe heat, while the island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea has a unique semi-arid tropical climate supporting extraordinary biodiversity found nowhere else on Earth.

Yemen is vulnerable to tropical cyclones from the Arabian Sea, which can bring devastating flooding to the coastal areas and even penetrate inland through the wadis. The Rub' al Khali desert along the northern border is virtually uninhabited due to extreme aridity and heat. The highland terraces, sustained by monsoon rains for thousands of years, represent one of the oldest continuously farmed landscapes in the world. Dust storms and sandstorms frequently affect the coastal and desert regions, particularly during the transitional seasons.