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Weather extremes

How extreme does Cape Town's weather get?

The hottest, coldest, wettest and snowiest days Cape Town has recorded — the outer limits of what its weather can do, and how far they sit beyond a normal day.

Based on 50+ years of daily weather observations (1973–present), from the Cape Town Intl station 17 km away. Updated through August 2025 — an all-time extreme only changes when a more extreme day actually occurs, so some dates are old. That is normal, not stale data.

The four kinds of extreme

The hottest, coldest, wettest and snowiest single days Cape Town has recorded — each shown against what a normal day that time of year looks like.

🔥 Hottest day
108°F Mar 3, 2015

That is about 27°F hotter than a normal March afternoon in Cape Town (typical high near 81°F).

The three most extreme on record

1 108°F Mar 3, 2015
2 106°F Jan 19, 2000
3 103°F Jan 14, 1983
❄️ Coldest night
24°F Jul 21, 2000

About 20°F colder than a normal July night in Cape Town (typical low near 44°F).

The three most extreme on record

1 24°F Jul 21, 2000
2 31°F Jul 18, 1983
3 31°F Jun 9, 1988
🌧️ Most rain in one day
10.69 in Apr 17, 1994

More rain in a single day than Cape Town usually gets in the whole month of April (typical April total about 2.3 in).

The three most extreme on record

1 10.69 in Apr 17, 1994
2 5.91 in Mar 26, 2014
3 3.90 in Sep 29, 2020

How hot and cold it gets, month by month

The shaded band is the normal range of daily temperatures for each month. The dots show the most extreme it has ever been — so you can see how far beyond a normal day the records really sit.

10°30°50°70°90°110°130° all-time high 108°F JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
normal range of daily temperatureshottest ever recordedcoldest ever recorded

Cape Town's record heat sits well above even a hot day for the season — March's 108°F is about 27°F beyond a normal hot afternoon. Its record cold is just as far below a normal winter night — the dots mark how rare each extreme really is.

In plain terms

In a normal year, Cape Town's warmest days reach the low 80s°F and its coldest nights drop to the mid-40s°F. But across the record it has gone as high as 108°F and as low as 24°F. A single day has delivered over 11 inches of rain. Those are the outer edges worth knowing if you are moving here, planning a trip, or thinking about a house.
Methodology & sources

Temperature & precipitation — 1991–2020 normals computed from 25 years of daily observations at Cape Town Intl, a weather station, about 17 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →