Is this autumn running wetter or drier than usual? A live weather model for Gjirokastër compared with the 30-year average, with the roof-loading and road-closure cautions that matter here.
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Gjirokastër has a dry-summer Mediterranean climate: hot, mostly rainless Julys and Augusts, then a wet autumn and winter that brings most of the year's ~1,450 mm of rain, with November the wettest month. This page reads a live weather model for the town and compares the last 30 days — and the week ahead — with the 1991–2020 average, so you can see whether this autumn is running wetter or drier than normal. It is a picture of the pattern, not a warning service: for storm alerts, follow the official channels.
Prolonged rain loads old stone roofs
Storms close the roads and cut power
It is the dry summer (vera e thatë) — hot and largely rainless, July and August the driest — the season when water demand is highest.
| Season | When | |
|---|---|---|
| Autumn rainsvjeshta e shirave | 15 September – 15 December | |
| Cool wet season | 16 December – 30 April | |
| Dry summervera e thatë | 1 May – 14 September | now |
These boundaries are typical, not fixed — the first autumn storms and the last spring rains drift by a few weeks each year, which is exactly what the live comparison below shows.
That is noticeably less rain than is typical for these dates.
No day this week is forecast to bring 1 mm of rain or more.
| Day | Rain | Chance of rain |
|---|---|---|
| Wed 29 Jul (today) | 0 mm | 0% |
| Thu 30 Jul | 0 mm | 5% |
| Fri 31 Jul | 0 mm | 15% |
| Sat 1 Aug | 0 mm | 0% |
| Sun 2 Aug | 0 mm | 0% |
| Mon 3 Aug | 0 mm | 3% |
| Tue 4 Aug | 0 mm | 3% |
The autumn and winter rains fill the Drino below the town and the Vjosa to the north-west — the valley farmland depends on them, and the Vjosa is watched in floods. A wet autumn is normal and needed; the tool is here to show whether this one is unusually wet or dry, not to judge it.
In a rainless July and August the town leans hardest on its piped supply. If your tap runs low in high summer, the water status board shows whether it is just your building or the whole neighbourhood.
Updated 29 July at 23:33. Rain figures are weather-model estimates for the area around central Gjirokastër — useful for comparing periods, not exact bucketfuls; one valley can catch a storm the next one misses. The “typical” figures are 1991–2020 averages from the same modelling family (ERA5), so the comparison is like-for-like. Weather data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).