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Has the climate in Polokwane changed?

Polokwane has warmed about 0.7°F between 1977 and 2004.

About 0.3°F per decade, measured from Polokwane's official daily weather records, 1977–2004. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Polokwane's warming is broadly in line with other cities in South Africa — neither unusually fast nor unusually slow.

What has actually changed

Each card compares the 1970s (the first ten years of the record) with recent years (the last ten) — the same span the headline and the chart use.

Freezing nights
about the same
1970s
1 / yr
Recent
1 / yr
Winters about as cold as before
Average temperature
+0.3°F
1970s
65.0°F
Recent
65.3°F
A steady upward drift
Hot days above 90°F
23 more days
1970s
15 / yr
Recent
38 / yr
More days of serious heat
Rainy days
17 more days
1970s
62 / yr
Recent
79 / yr
Wetter on average

Polokwane's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1977 to 2004.

62°64°66°68°1977: 65.5°F1978: 64.6°F1979: 64.7°F1980: 63.9°F1981: 63.4°F1982: 65.4°F1983: 66.2°F1984: 65.8°F1985: 65.4°F1986: 65.7°F1987: 66.3°F1988: 65.7°F1989: 65.2°F1990: 65.4°F1991: 65.2°F1992: 67.1°F1993: 65.9°F1994: 64.5°F1995: 65.8°F1996: 64.3°F1997: 64.7°F1998: 66.0°F1999: 64.6°F2000: 63.8°F2001: 64.7°F2002: 66.4°F2003: 67.2°F2004: 65.9°Flong-term trend19771980199020002004
a warmer-than-average year a cooler-than-average year

Each bar is one year. Most recent years sit above the older ones. Some recent years still came in cool — warming is a slope, not a straight climb.

In day-to-day terms, that long-term shift shows up as about 19 more days above 90°F compared with the 1970s.

When in the year the change shows up

How much warmer each month is now than in the 1970s. Useful if you garden or care about a particular season — otherwise the headline above already has the answer.

0.0°+0.5°+1.0°January: +0.3°F+0.3JFebruary: +0.2°F+0.2FMarch: +0.1°F+0.1MApril: +0.4°F+0.4AMay: +0.1°F+0.1MJune: +0.2°F+0.2JJuly: +0.0°F+0.0JAugust: +0.7°F+0.7ASeptember: +0.2°F+0.2SOctober: +0.7°F+0.7ONovember: +0.9°F+0.9NDecember: +0.5°F+0.5D

November has warmed the most — about 0.9°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 14 years of daily observations at Polokwane, a weather station, about 5 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →