Kuwait weather and the best time to visit

Summer is officially half the year

Kuwait's meteorological service divides the year into four periods with dates attached, and they are worth reading before booking anything. Summer runs from 21 May to 4 November, winter from 6 December to 15 February, spring from 16 February to 20 May and autumn from 5 November to 5 December. By that calendar the hot season is not a couple of months; it is nearly half the year.

The numbers behind it are extreme. July averages 44 C by day and 32 C at night, August 43 and 32. June to September record no rain at all, and the whole of April to October totals 10 mm. Kuwait International Airport's highest recorded temperature is 51.3 C, on 20 August 1998.

The service splits that summer in two: a dry summer from 6 June to 19 July with "strong dust storms where the visibility may decrease to few meters, especially at noon", and a wet summer from 20 July to 4 November that adds humidity to the heat - the combination it describes as "exhausting greatly, especially when accompanied by wind stillness".

The window, and the storm season either side of it

November to March is the answer: 18-25 C by day, 10-17 C at night, and what little rain the country gets. January, the coolest month at 18 C by day, is the one that most resembles a normal spring elsewhere.

Spring is not simply a milder version of it. The met service dates thunderstorms to 10 March-8 April, accompanied by "severe dust storms where the visibility drops to zero", and the al-Sarayat thunderstorms to 9 April-13 May. A late-April trip is chasing the edge of both the heat and the dust; late November to February is the clean part of the year.