Which Areas Flood When It Rains

Where Kampala floods, where the year stands in the two rainy seasons, and whether heavy rain is on the way — with the radio and city channels that carry the real warnings.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Kampala and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Where the town floods

The same low places go under in heavy rain, every wet season. If you live, work or travel through one of these, plan around the low roads before the rain sets in.

Bwaise

Kawempe

The best-known flood spot in the city. Where Bombo Road dips at Bwaise, runoff pours off the hills and collects fast; the low lanes flood and stay under for hours after heavy rain.

Kalerwe

Kawempe

The market and the low ground beside the Lubigi wetland flood when the rains are heavy, and the channel through the area backs up — trade and the low roads stop until the water drains.

Kawempe (wider division)

Kawempe

Much of low-lying Kawempe goes under in heavy rain. In a local survey almost every household named flooding as their main weather worry; movement stops and shallow wells get contaminated.

Katwe

Low ground just south of the city centre, along the Nakivubo channel. When the channel is blocked or overwhelmed, the workshops and roads here are among the first to flood.

Kyebando–Nsoba and Makerere III

Low wards below the hills that flood in the heavier rains — water runs down off the high ground and stands in the valley bottoms.

Why it floods here

Kampala is built on hills with marshy valleys between them. Rain runs off the paved hilltops and collects in the valleys, where drainage is worst and homes are densest. The Nakivubo channel is the city's main drain — when it is blocked with silt or rubbish, or simply overwhelmed, the low areas flood. Clearing rubbish from the drains and channels before the rains is the single thing that helps most.

“In a Kawempe flood survey, 96% of residents named flooding as their main climate risk, and almost all reported the rains getting heavier over the past five years.”
— Kawempe flood survey, 2023

Who to call when it floods

Emergencies first, then the bodies that respond to flooding and water safety.

Police, fire and ambulance

Emergencies — when someone is in danger

Phone: 999

KCCA

Kampala Capital City Authority — drainage, roads and city emergencies · The city authority that clears the channels and responds to flooding.

Website: kcca.go.ug

NWSC — Kampala Water

Water supply and safe-water advice after flooding · Toll-free, 24 hours.

Phone