Kenya
Kenya Geography & Climate
Geography
Kenya covers about 580,000 square kilometres, straddles the equator, and contains a greater range of terrain than almost any country its size — from coral reef to glacier within four hundred kilometres.
The Rift Valley
The Great Rift Valley runs north to south through the country, a trench up to a hundred kilometres wide with escarpments on both sides and a chain of lakes along its floor. Some are freshwater, some highly alkaline — Bogoria and Nakuru draw flamingos in enormous numbers, and the Kenya Lake System is UNESCO-listed.
The highlands
The plateau either side of the rift sits between 1,500 and 3,000 metres, which is why Nairobi at 1,795 metres has a temperate climate on the equator. Mount Kenya, an extinct volcano, reaches 5,199 metres and carries the only equatorial glaciers in Africa apart from Kilimanjaro’s — both are retreating fast and are expected to disappear within decades.
The north
Semi-arid and arid country covering more than half the land area, with Lake Turkana — the largest desert lake in the world, jade-coloured and alkaline — in the far north-west. Its shores produced some of the most important hominin fossils ever found and are UNESCO-listed.
The coast
Five hundred kilometres of Indian Ocean shore with a fringing coral reef, mangrove creeks, and the Lamu archipelago in the north.
Lake Victoria
Kenya holds the north-eastern corner of Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and the second-largest freshwater lake in the world, shared with Uganda and Tanzania. Kisumu sits on it, and the lake fisheries are a major part of the western economy — and a long-running ecological problem, since the Nile perch introduced in the 1950s wiped out a great many endemic cichlid species.
Savannah
The southern grassland and acacia country — the Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo — is what most visitors picture, and it is contiguous with the Serengeti across the Tanzanian border.
Climate Patterns
Kenya sits on the equator, so day length barely changes and the seasons are defined by rainfall rather than temperature. Altitude does the rest, and it does a great deal.
Two rainy seasons
The long rains fall roughly March to May and the short rains in November and December, with dry spells between. The long rains are heavier and are the genuine low season for safari; the short rains rarely disrupt travel and often produce dramatic skies.
The highlands
Nairobi, at nearly 1,800 metres, averages 25°C by day and drops to 12°C at night, and needs a jacket after dark in July and August. Higher still, the slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares are cold, wet and frequently misty, with frost above 3,000 metres and snow on the summit.
The coast
Hot and humid all year, 26 to 32°C, moderated by the monsoon winds — the kaskazi from the north-east between November and March and the kusi from the south-west from April to October, which is what the dhows have always sailed on.
The north
Arid to semi-arid, regularly above 35°C, with very low and unreliable rainfall. Recurrent drought in the north and east has become more frequent and is now the country’s most serious climate problem.
Altitude beats latitude
The single most useful thing to know is that Kenya is on the equator and much of it is not hot. Nairobi has never recorded 33°C; the Aberdares and Mount Kenya have frost most nights above three thousand metres; and visitors arriving with tropical clothing and nothing warm are routinely caught out on the first morning game drive.
On safari
Game drives leave before dawn, when it is genuinely cold even near the equator, and the same day can reach 30°C by noon. Layers are the practical answer.