Weather in Cairo in January

Prime time. January is about as good as Cairo gets. Highs average 19.8 °C, lows 7.5 °C, and rain falls on 2 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

January ranks 5 of 12 in Cairo: past the worst of the year but short of March, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain falls on only 2 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average January reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest January day reached 29.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 2.1 °C.

This is the volatile part. January rainfall has ranged from 0 mm to 29 mm across the twenty years measured — a 29 mm spread around an average of 8 mm. The average is real but almost no individual January looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 9 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 61%.

How January sits in the year

This is a turning point in the year — December and February sit on opposite sides of it, so the month contains the change rather than following it.

Daylight in January

January sits at the dark end of Cairo's year — 10.4 hours of daylight against 14.1 at midsummer, gaining 0.5 hours across the month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 31.8 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

January in Cairo versus nearby

If Cairo is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Port Said is the weaker option in January — 2.9 °C cooler, 7 days more rain. Alexandria is the weaker option in January — within a degree on temperature, 4 days more rain.

So: January is effectively as good as it gets here — 2 points behind March, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Cairo

See all twelve months in Cairo, or where else to go in January.