Where the one rainy season stands: the last 30 days against the 30-year average and the week ahead — what it means for floods, the harvest and the taps.
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Mzuzu's year has one rainy season, not two. Almost all of the city's rain — about 1,290 mm of it — falls between November and April, and that single wet spell decides both the maize harvest and which low-lying wards flood. The chart below tracks live conditions against the 30-year average; this calendar explains what the seasons usually mean here.
It is the cool dry season — clear, cool highland days and cold nights, with little or no rain. The harvest is in and the markets fill.
| Season | When | |
|---|---|---|
| Main rainy season | 1 November – 30 April | |
| Cool dry season | 1 May – 31 August | now |
| Hot dry season | 1 September – 31 October |
These dates are typical, not fixed — the first and last rains drift from year to year, so the live data above is the better guide for any single week.
That is noticeably less rain than is typical for these dates.
1 of the next 7 days are forecast to bring 1 mm of rain or more, with about 3 mm in total (typical for this week: 6 mm).
| Day | Rain | Chance of rain |
|---|---|---|
| Thu 9 Jul (today) | 0 mm | 99% |
| Fri 10 Jul | 2 mm | 100% |
| Sat 11 Jul | 0 mm | 63% |
| Sun 12 Jul | 0 mm | 59% |
| Mon 13 Jul | 1 mm | 73% |
| Tue 14 Jul | 0 mm | 54% |
| Wed 15 Jul | 0 mm | 8% |
When the heavy rains come, the same low-lying, poorly-drained wards go under — Zolozolo worst of all, along with Chiputula, Katawa, Masasa, Mzilawayingwe, Nkhorongo, Chibanja and Chibavi. Dozens of households are displaced most years. A wet stretch in the forecast is the time to clear blocked drains and watch the streams; in a serious flood, follow Mzuzu City Council and civil-protection guidance on moving to higher ground.
Because the rain comes in a single block, the north gets one maize crop a year, planted with the first dependable rains and harvested into the dry season. How the wet season goes shapes prices for months afterwards — the crop-prices board on this page tracks where those prices land.
Mzuzu's water comes from Lunyangwa Dam, whose treatment plant already produces far less than the city needs, with much of the treated water lost to old pipes and leaks. Good rains help the dam, but the shortages and rationing are about ageing infrastructure, not rainfall — a wet year will not, on its own, end the dry taps.
Updated 9 July at 23:08. Rain figures are weather-model estimates for the area around central Mzuzu — 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).