Weather in Dar es Salaam in October

A good month. October works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. Highs average 29.7 °C, lows 24.8 °C, and rain falls on 11 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

October ranks 5 of 12 in Dar es Salaam: past the worst of the year but short of July, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 11 days, 2 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Pack for 29.7 °C days and 24.8 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 9 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break; the day barely swings — 4.9 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest October day reached 32.3 °C and the coldest night fell to 22.8 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 61 mm — roughly 90% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. October rainfall has ranged from 5 mm to 303 mm across the twenty years measured — a 298 mm spread around an average of 68 mm. The average is real but almost no individual October looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 15.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 73%.

How October sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 28.8 °C in September, 29.7 here, 30 in November. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: November brings 7 days more of it, so the earlier half of a flexible trip is the safer half.

Daylight in October

Dar es Salaam sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.2 hours in October, against a range of just 0.8 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 26.7 °C in October — warm enough to stay in as long as you like. The sea peaks at 29.5 °C in March and bottoms out at 25.6 °C — water lags the air by a month or two, which is why the best swimming often comes after the best weather.

How busy it gets

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

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

October in Dar es Salaam versus nearby

If Dar es Salaam is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Zanzibar is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain. Mombasa is the weaker option in October — 3 °C warmer, 2 days more rain.

So: October is a compromise. July is 25 points better and is what Dar es Salaam is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Dar es Salaam

See all twelve months in Dar es Salaam, or where else to go in October.