Climate-Zone.com

HomeCitiesSouth AfricaBloemfonteinTools › Climate trends

Has the climate in Bloemfontein changed?

Bloemfontein has warmed about 0.5°F between 1973 and 2024.

About 0.1°F per decade, measured from Bloemfontein's official daily weather records, 1973–2024. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Bloemfontein'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
33 more nights
1970s
33 / yr
Recent
66 / yr
Colder winters — more frosts
Average temperature
about the same
1970s
61.3°F
Recent
61.4°F
Year-round temperature has barely moved
Hot days above 90°F
40 more days
1970s
25 / yr
Recent
65 / yr
More days of serious heat
Rainy days
13 fewer days
1970s
73 / yr
Recent
60 / yr
Drier on average

Bloemfontein's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1973 to 2024.

56°58°60°62°64°1973: 61.6°F1974: 57.3°F1975: 61.4°F1976: 57.7°F1977: 60.4°F1978: 60.4°F1979: 61.6°F1980: 61.6°F1981: 59.5°F1982: 61.3°F1983: 63.6°F1984: 63.6°F1985: 63.4°F1986: 63.1°F1987: 63.3°F1988: 61.1°F1989: 60.6°F1990: 61.9°F1991: 60.7°F1992: 62.2°F1993: 61.7°F1994: 58.8°F1995: 61.2°F1996: 58.5°F1997: 59.4°F1998: 59.8°F1999: 61.5°F2000: 59.3°F2001: 61.0°F2002: 62.3°F2003: 63.7°F2004: 62.4°F2005: 60.9°F2006: 58.2°F2007: 59.4°F2008: 60.7°F2009: 59.9°F2010: 61.1°F2011: 61.6°F2012: 60.8°F2013: 61.5°F2014: 61.5°F2015: 63.5°F2016: 63.5°F2017: 61.7°F2018: 61.8°F2019: 62.9°F2020: 60.1°F2021: 59.5°F2022: 60.4°F2023: 60.8°F2024: 62.3°Flong-term trend1973198019902000201020202024
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 freezing nights a year and about 23 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.

-2.0°-1.5°-1.0°-0.5°0.0°+0.5°+1.0°January: -1.6°F-1.6JFebruary: -0.2°F-0.2FMarch: -0.1°F-0.1MApril: -0.9°F-0.9AMay: +0.0°F+0.0MJune: -0.1°F-0.1JJuly: -0.2°F-0.2JAugust: -0.3°F-0.3ASeptember: -1.3°F-1.3SOctober: +0.4°F+0.4ONovember: -0.1°F-0.1NDecember: -0.4°F-0.4D

January has cooled the most — about 1.6°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 28 years of daily observations at Bloemfontein Airpor, a weather station, about 9 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →