Amazingly enough, Chad is relatively comfortable for a fair
bit of the year. Oh yes, we missionaries love to tell great tales of the heat,
but really when you figure it all out, it's not too bad. You don't want to be
around from March to May, but aside from that, we do OK.
Here's the scoop: "winter" in Chad (or "cold
season" as we call it) means it gets down into the 60's at night and the
Chadians are all bundled up in Salvation Army ski jackets, stocking caps and
scarves - no joke! It corresponds with winter in the USA, albeit a bit
shorter - December and January mainly. Up in the Sahara desert, temperatures
fall below freezing at night (since there's no moisture or trees to hold in the
heat ). If you're going to visit Chad, this is the ideal time to do so (assuming
you wont be sleeping in the desert).
Likewise, if you define "summer" as the growing
season, it corresponds more or less to summer in North America. The main
difference is why it is summer. In N. America, it's warm
enough to grow things; in Chad it's wet enough to grow things. It only
rains for about 3 months - July, August, and September - but during those three
months as much rain falls on southern Chad as upon Chicago during an entire year
(about 3 feet). The entire country grinds to a standstill during these months as
the country's network of dirt roads become a vast quagmire, swallowing even semi
trucks whole.
Then, there's the "hot season" which you can
associate with "spring" - six to eight weeks of temperatures of 110
degrees (and often over 115 in the capital) every day from mid-March to May. At
the outset, it's survivable as the humidity is low (see chart). 'Round about the
end of April, though, the humidity starts to rise in anticipation of the rainy
season, and even with a slight drop in temperature, the misery ... well, let's
just say it's an ideal time to take a vacation.
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