The freezing level and the wind at camp height on Kilimanjaro — the two numbers that decide whether a night at Barafu is cold or dangerous.
Loading the latest information…
Town Tools builds free, public tools for Moshi 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.
Everything else Town Tools shows for Moshi is read at about 850 m — the town, the dust, the rains. This page is read on the mountain instead: the height of the freezing level and the wind up where the camps are.
It is here mostly for the people who work up there. Around three crew go up for every climber, and a porter sleeps at Barafu in whatever they own. Knowing that the 0°C line has dropped below the high camps, or that the wind at summit height has got up, is the difference between a cold night and a dangerous one — and it is not something the town's own weather can tell you.
~5,100 m
Above Moshi town, Karanga Camp & Barafu Camp, below Uhuru Peak.
Model forecast, as of 21:18.
| Day | 0°C level | Strongest wind aloft | Precip / snow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Today | 4,850–5,200 m | a moderate breeze (~5500 m) | 3.2 mm |
| Tomorrow | 4,800–5,550 m | a fresh breeze (~4300 m) | 4 mm |
| Mon 3 | 4,650–5,100 m | a moderate breeze (~4300 m) | 4.9 mm |
| Tue 4 | 4,650–5,000 m | a gentle breeze (~5500 m) | 3.1 mm |
These numbers come from a global forecast model reading a grid square over the mountain. They are not measurements taken at Barafu, and nothing on this page says whether it is all right to climb on a given day. That judgement belongs to your licensed guide, who is on the mountain and can see you.
On Kilimanjaro you cannot climb without a licensed guide — it is a park rule, checked at every gate. The mountain's real risk is altitude, not weather: altitude sickness has nothing to do with being fit or young, and its dangerous forms mean going down at once. Tell your guide how you feel, every day.
In an emergency on the mountain the call goes through your guide and the park's own rescue, not through this page — that is what the licensed-guide rule is for.
For crew: the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project publishes what a properly equipped porter should be carrying and wearing before the gate, including for the cold at the high camps. If your operator has not provided it, KPAP is the place to raise it.
The freezing level is the height at which the air reaches 0°C. On Kilimanjaro it usually sits somewhere between the high camps and the summit, which is why the same day can be warm at Karanga and bitter at Stella Point. When it drops below about 4,700 m, Barafu itself is below freezing — and that is where the crew are sleeping, not just passing through.
The grid square this forecast is read from sits at about 5,828 m. Uhuru Peak is 5,895 m. That is close enough for the freezing level and the wind to mean something, and far enough that you should treat every number as the weather over the massif rather than the weather at one camp.
Moshi's long rains run March to May and carry roughly 71% of the year's rainfall; the short rains come in November and December. The mountain broadly follows them, but snow on the summit does not need a rainy season — it can fall in any month, and the wind at summit height changes far faster than the season does.
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).