N'Djamena, Chad vs. Akron, Ohio

How hot does it get here? I am frequently asked this question, but never able to answer it, so I thought that I would provide the answer right here. Americans think “Africa,” they think “hot.” Of course, this is another familiar stereotype of the Dark Continent, as it isn’t hot everywhere. The highest peak in Africa is Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and it is ice covered year round (except that with global warming, the volume of the ice cap has been reduced by 80% in the last 100 years and predicted to disappear altogether in maybe 15 years).

However, I am not on top of Kilimanjaro. This is Chad. The northern half of the country lies in the Sahara desert. Fortunately, it isn’t desert here, but N’Djamena is in the area that borders the Sahara, known as the Sahel. We get the winds, and we get the dust storms. And there is no cool sea breeze in this land-locked country in the heart of Africa to give any relief, and so we get plenty of heat too!

Dust storm season is over now, and we are at the peak of the rainy season. However, when the city planners laid out N’Djamena roads, they left out a small detail: drainage. Even with a 4X4 truck, I have to carefully navigate through the city being careful not to be swallowed up by the mud (shift of thought, not all roads are paved!)

Just for kicks, I thought it would be interesting to analyse the weather in Chad, and compare it with my hometown Akron, Ohio. I got onto weather.com, which makes some fantastic graphs showing average daily temperatures and precipitation (in English units even!). And don’t think that I am trying to deceive you here – the graphs are lined up - N’Djamena’s lowest high temperature is 4 degrees higher than Akron’s highest high temperature!)

I also looked up Conakry, Guinea on weather.com to check out the precipitation. I have seen Conakry ranked as one of the ten wettest cities on earth. However, the graph just goes blank after June - October. I think the system is a bit overloaded with a graph that only goes up to 12 inches! According to the BBC website, the average amount of rainfall in August (the wettest month) is a whopping 1298 mm (over 51 inches!). Now that is wet!

OK - now for the weather comparison:

And then, just a few other comparisons in order to respond to some of the FAQ to which I just never know the response! (All stats from Wikipedia).

Location
N’Djamena: 12°06'47" N, 15°02'57" E
Akron: 41°04'23" N, 81°31'04" W

Population
N’Djamena (2005 est.): 721,000 ; Chad (2005 est.): 9,749,000
Akron (2000): 217,014 ; US (2006 est.) 299,102,661

Time Zone:
Difference in time is 6 hours between N'Djamena (UTC+1) and Akron (UTC -5). (5 hours during daylight savings time)

Area:
Chad: 495, 753 square miles (11 times the size of the state of Ohio)
US: 3,718,695 square miles

GDP (per capita):
Chad: $1,519
US: $41,399