Cairo in 2050: climate change in numbers
Cairo has warmed 1.8 °C, comparing the last ten years (2016–2025) with 1951–1980 — faster than the world as a whole (+1.1 °C). By 2050, it is heading for a climate that no large city has today.
2050 = 2040–2059 average, intermediate emissions (SSP2-4.5), median of CMIP6 climate models. “Today” = 1991–2020. Model range for average temperature: 23.2–24.4 °C.
Cairo: average annual temperature, 1950–2025 (°C)
1950 → 2025. Cairo's warming stripes: each stripe is one year's average temperature.
What Cairo's climate will feel like
We compared Cairo's projected 2050 climate with today's climate in more than 1,000 large cities. None is a close match; the nearest is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Scientists call this a novel climate: conditions the city's people, buildings and infrastructure have no local experience of.
| Cairo today | Cairo 2050 | Riyadh today | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average temperature | 22.2 °C | 23.8 °C | 26.4 °C |
| Average daily high | 28.5 °C | 30.1 °C | 32.8 °C |
| Hottest day | 42 °C | 44 °C | 46 °C |
| Frost days | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rainfall | 24 mm | 18 mm | 70 mm |
A year in Cairo, day by day
Each square is one day of the year; the coloured squares are the days that cross the threshold in an average year.
Days above 35 °C (95 °F) in Cairo
Tropical nights in Cairo (never cooler than 20 °C)
What changes by 2050
- The average temperature rises a further 1.5 °C compared with 1991–2020 (model range 1.0–2.2 °C).
- Days above 35 °C (95 °F) rise from about 70 a year (1991–2020) to about 121 by 2040–2059.
- Tropical nights — when it never cools below 20 °C — increase from about 119 to 148 a year, making heatwaves harder on health.
Dangerous heat in Cairo
Days a year when the heat index — temperature and humidity combined — reaches 39 °C, the level the US National Weather Service calls Danger: 0 in 1995–2014, 0 by 2050 and 2 by 2090 under intermediate emissions, or 58 by 2090 if emissions keep rising. See where dangerous heat spreads worldwide.
Under high emissions
If emissions keep rising (SSP5-8.5), Cairo would average 24.4 °C by 2040–2059, with a hottest day around 44 °C and 131 days above 35 °C (95 °F) a year. By mid-century the scenarios are still close; the choices made now mostly decide what happens after 2050 — see the world in 2050.
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Frequently asked questions
How hot will Cairo be in 2050?
Under an intermediate emissions scenario (SSP2-4.5), Cairo's average annual temperature in 2040–2059 is projected at about 23.8 °C (range 23.2–24.4 °C across climate models), compared with 22.2 °C in 1991–2020. The hottest day of a typical year reaches about 44 °C (111 °F).
Is Cairo getting hotter?
Yes. The last ten years (2016–2025) averaged 1.8 °C warmer than 1951–1980 in Cairo, faster than the global average of 1.1 °C over the same period (Copernicus ERA5).
Which city will Cairo feel like in 2050?
No large city today has a climate quite like Cairo's projected 2050 climate. The closest match is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but the fit is loose — Cairo is heading into a climate with no close equivalent among the world's large cities.
What would happen under high emissions?
Under a very high emissions scenario (SSP5-8.5), Cairo's average temperature in 2040–2059 is projected at 24.4 °C and the hottest day at about 44 °C. The differences between scenarios grow much larger after 2050.
Sources: World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal (CMIP6 0.25°, ERA5 0.25°); Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis (C3S/ECMWF); NASA NEX-GDDP-CMIP6 (Thrasher et al. 2022); GeoNames
Method: Delta method: ERA5 1995–2014 + CMIP6 ensemble change 2040–2059 vs 1995–2014. Values are for the ~25 km grid cell containing the city and can differ from a single weather station, especially for coastal and mountain cities. Methodology · Download CSV
Licence: Derived from ERA5 (CC BY 4.0, Copernicus/ECMWF), CMIP6 via World Bank CCKP (CC BY-SA 4.0) and GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). City data on this site: CC BY-SA 4.0. · Generated 17 October 2026