Geography: Namibia is located in the south of the African continent, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean. An arid climate and the two deserts, the Namib and the Kalahari, characterize the country’s terrain. Frequent droughts and erratic rainfall patterns make it the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa.
What is the driest desert in Africa?
Northern Africa is one of the driest regions on Earth, home to the Sahara desert, the largest hot desert in the world.
Where does it rain the least in Africa?
An average of less than 1,000 millimeters of rain falls per year across most of Africa (Map 1). Rainfall tends to decrease with distance from the equator and is negligible in the Sahara (north of about latitude 16°N), in eastern Somalia, and in the southwest of the continent in Namibia and South Africa.
Which place is the driest place on Earth?
The Atacama is the driest place on earth, other than the poles. It receives less than 1 mm of precipitation each year, and some areas haven’t seen a drop of rain in more than 500 years.
Why is Africa the driest country?
African deserts are the sunniest and the driest parts of the continent, owing to the prevailing presence of the subtropical ridge with subsiding, hot, dry air masses. … The already hot and dry climate that straddles the equator, makes it the most vulnerable continent to climate change.
Why is South Africa so dry?
At other times the country experiences relatively very dry and warm periods. This type of variability is part of the Earth’s natural climate dynamics and is partially caused by oscillations and complex configurations of global and regional climate systems working in concert to produce our weather.
Why is Sahara so dry?
The high position of the Sun, the extremely low relative humidity, and the lack of vegetation and rainfall make the Great Desert the hottest large region in the world, and the hottest place on Earth during summer in some spots.
What is the most rainy place in Africa?
San Antonio de Ureca is the wettest place in the African Continent. The dry season is only from November to March, with the rest of the months attracting heavy rain.
Is Africa a dry continent?
Africa’s climate is dominated by desert conditions along vast stretches of its northern and southern fringes. The central portion of the continent is wetter, with tropical rainforests, grasslands, and semi-arid climates.
What are the 5 driest places on Earth?
The 10 Driest Places on Earth
- Iquique, Chile. …
- Wadi Halfa, Sudan. …
- Ica, Peru. …
- Luxor, Egypt. …
- Aswan, Egypt. …
- Al-Kufrah, Libya. …
- Arica, Chile. Coastal road towards the beaches of Arica, Chile. ( …
- Dry Valleys, Antarctica. (Image credit: NASA)
What is the coldest driest place on Earth?
The Antarctic, commonly referred to as the South Pole region, has the coldest temperature ever recorded at -89.2 degrees Celsius, -128.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps the strangest fact is that the Antarctic is actually a desert! The continent has the least rainfall and is the driest of all the continents.
Is there a place where it never rains?
The driest place on Earth is in Antarctica in an area called the Dry Valleys, which have seen no rain for nearly 2 million years. There is absolutely no precipitation in this region and it makes up a 4800 square kilometer region of almost no water, ice or snow.
What is the name of the driest continent on Earth?
Antarctica is the driest continent; it is almost entirely desert. Very little snow or rain falls on the continent, but because it is so cold, the small amount of precipitation that does fall does not melt. 7. The ice can be more than 4 km thick in some places.
What is the second driest continent?
Australia is the world’s second driest continent, after Antarctica, with a long-term average rainfall of 430 millimetres ( mm ) and variations ranging across Australia from below 100 mm to above 3000 mm per year (Figure WAT2).
Is Africa drier than Australia?
Comparing Australia’s Dryness To Other Continents
The continent is established as the driest continent despite other larger continents such as Africa having larger areas of deserts. The Sahara Desert, for example, occupies a larger land area than Australia.