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Zaire Climate
Climate ranges from tropical rain forest in the Congo
River
basin to tropical wet-and-dry in the southern uplands to
tropical
highland in eastern areas above 2,000 meters in elevation.
In
general, temperatures and humidity are quite high. The
highest and
least variable temperatures are to be found in the
equatorial
forest, where daytime highs range between 30°C and 35°C,
and
nighttime lows rarely go below 20°C. The average annual
temperature
is about 25°C. In the southern uplands, particularly in
southeastern Shaba, winters are cool and dry, whereas
summers are
warm and damp. The area embracing the chain of lakes from
Lake
Albert to Lake Tanganyika in the eastern highlands has a
moist
climate and a narrow but not excessively warm temperature
range.
The mountain sections are cooler, but humidity increases
with
altitude until the saturation point is reached; a nearly
constant
falling mist prevails on some slopes, particularly in the
Ruwenzori
Mountains.
The seasonal pattern of rainfall is affected by Zaire's
straddling of the equator. In the third of the country
that lies
north of the equator, the dry season (roughly early
November to
late March) corresponds to the rainy season in the
southern twothirds . There is a great deal of variation, however, and a
number
of places on either side of the equator have two wet and
two dry
seasons. Rainfall averages range from about 1,000
millimeters to
2,200 millimeters. Annual rainfall is highest in the heart
of the
Congo River basin and in the highlands west of Bukavu and
with some
variation tends to diminish in direct relation to distance
from
these areas. The only areas marked by long four-month to
five-month
dry seasons and occasional droughts are parts of Shaba.
Data as of December 1993
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