Heatwave · West Africa
The Sahel's hottest days, at the end of Ramadan
April is the hottest month in the western Sahel, before the rains. In 2024 it began with a heatwave that broke records across Mali and Burkina Faso: 48.5 °C at Kayes on 3 April, Mali's highest April temperature, and nights near 32 °C in Burkina Faso. It fell in the last days of Ramadan, when many people fast without water from dawn to dusk, in towns with frequent power cuts. At the Gabriel Touré hospital in Bamako 102 people died in the first four days of April, against 130 in the whole of April 2023. [S1]
30 March – 6 April 2024 · Mali and Burkina Faso · ERA5
102
Deaths in one hospital, 1–4 April
Gabriel Touré hospital, Bamako; 130 in the whole of April 2023. The true toll is unknown.S1
+1.5°C
Hotter by climate change
Up to 1.5 °C for the days, about 2 °C for the nights; the heat would have been impossible without warming.S1
What happened
The heat built from the end of March under a ridge of high pressure over West Africa. On ERA5's maps the hottest air sits over western Mali and southern Mauritania, between the Senegal and Niger rivers, on 1–4 April. The days were extreme; the nights were worse. Where the body normally recovers after sunset, the temperature stayed above 30 °C until dawn.
World Weather Attribution found that heat like this, over five days, would have been impossible in a climate without human-caused warming: even today, five days this hot are expected only about once in 200 years. Warming made the days up to 1.5 °C hotter and the nights about 2 °C warmer.S1
Kayes
32.4°C
ERA5's lowest temperature at Kayes on 4 April: the coolest moment of the day and night, warmer than an average afternoon in a European summer.
| Day | Highest | Lowest |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 31 | 45.0 | 27.0 |
| Apr 1 | 45.5 | 29.2 |
| Apr 2 | 47.1 | 31.4 |
| Apr 3 | 46.6 | 31.1 |
| Apr 4 | 43.2 | 32.4 |
ERA5's afternoon highs at Kayes, 45–47 °C, fall a little short of the station's 48.5 °C, as reanalysis highs usually do: its grid cell averages the town with the cooler riverbanks and hills around it. The pattern, and the warm nights, are the same.
The heat aloft and the month
The heat was not only at the ground. At 850 hPa, about 1.5 km up, a deep layer of hot air lay over Mali and its neighbours on 2 April, with little wind to mix it away. The month's mean map shows the heat lasted: April is always the Sahel's hottest month, and in 2024 its warmest band ran across Mali and Burkina Faso.
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References
News
Studies and guidelines
- S1World Weather Attribution (2024). Extreme Sahel heatwave that hit highly vulnerable population at the end of Ramadan would not have occurred without climate change. 18 April 2024.The records, the deaths in Bamako, and the role of climate change.