The year in Fez-Meknes, month by month
The figures come from the observatory at Fez airport, 579 metres up, 1991–2020 series: 487.7 millimetres a year over 54.7 rainy days and 3,100.8 hours of sun. The scoring crosses rain, rainy days, sunshine, temperature and humidity.
Most climates we call dry have a summer with little rain. Here the figure belongs to another category: one millimetre over thirty-one days, with less than half a rainy day on average in the entire month.
That changes how you plan. You do not have to worry about whether it will rain; you have to worry about what time of day you will be outside.
01 One millimetre in a whole month
The observatory at Fez airport, 579 metres up, records a mean of 1.1 millimetres in July and 4.9 in August. Across June to September, the four months add up to 39.2 millimetres: 8 per cent of the annual total.
The day count is even more telling. July counts 0.4 rainy days and August 1.0, against March's 6.9. Over the year there are 54.7 days with precipitation, meaning that on three days out of four nothing falls at all.
It is worth grasping what a figure like that means in a place of ancient farming: the whole agricultural year depends on what falls in the other half of it. That is why the landscape you see in March and the one you see in August look nothing alike.
Four tenths of a rainy day in July. It is not that it rains little: it does not rain.
02 The water piles into seven months
From October to April, 410.3 of the annual 487.7 millimetres fall, 84 per cent of the total. And the wettest month is none of those associated with deep winter: it is November, with 66.1 millimetres.
Behind come December with 62.0 and January with 60.1. It is a textbook Mediterranean distribution, but with an early start: the wet season begins in October and that month alone leaves 53.9 millimetres.
Humidity follows suit. December reaches 79.0 per cent and January 78.3, against July's 55.4. A winter with highs of 16 degrees at that humidity feels colder than the thermometer says, especially inside thick-walled, unheated houses.
03 Thirty-five degrees and no shade
July and August share the same mean high, 35.1 degrees, and the series' absolute record stands at 46.7. This is not the humid heat of a coast: it is continental inland heat, with humidity at 55 per cent and an enormous daily swing.
That swing is the good news. July and August lows sit at 17.9 and 18.3 degrees, so the first hour of the morning is perfectly usable and the night is pleasant. The problem is the stretch between noon and six.
At the other end, winter freezes. January's record is 8.2 degrees below zero and the mean of the month's coldest nights is around 0.3. A little snow falls, very little, and it is enough to remind you this is not a mild-climate city.
04 The region's other half is at sixteen hundred metres
All of the above applies to the plain. The region also includes a band of limestone plateaux in the Middle Atlas that receive on the order of 1,100 to 1,200 millimetres a year, more than twice the city's figure, and where snow sometimes starts in October and lasts well into spring.
And here is the figure that throws anyone: the lowest temperature ever recorded in Africa was measured in that area, at 1,665 metres, on 11 February 1935, and it was 23.9 degrees below zero. In the same region where the thermometer reaches 46.7 in summer.
For planning, that means you have two calendars an hour apart. In July, going up the mountain takes off a good ten degrees and adds cedars and shade; in January, going up changes the whole trip and can require snow chains.
05 Three thousand one hundred hours of sun
The year accumulates 3,100.8 hours of sun, a high figure even for the Mediterranean basin. The maximum is in July, with 350.3 hours, over eleven a day; the minimum in February, with 187.6.
What is interesting is that the floor of the distribution is high. No month drops below 187 hours, so even in midwinter there are around six hours of sun a day on average. For a city trip, that makes December and January perfectly usable months.
And it explains a detail of architecture. In a city with this much sun, the narrow street and the internal courtyard are not a picturesque quirk: they are the cooling system. Shade is manufactured by the building's own plan.
06 How to choose the month
If you can choose, March, April, May and October. All four combine highs of 19.9 to 26.4 degrees with 244.9 to 300.7 hours of sun, and rain stays between 38.2 and 59.2 millimetres over six or seven days at most.
If the trip falls in summer, take the deal: get up genuinely early, eat and rest under cover through the middle hours and go out again from six. With 0.4 rainy days in July, the only thing to dodge is the sun, and you dodge it with the clock.
And if you can only travel in winter, do not rule it out for rain, which is 60.1 millimetres over 6.7 days. Rule it out, if at all, for the night-time cold and the 78 per cent humidity, which is what you really feel inside a thick-walled house.
The year's four stretches
From 38.2 to 59.2 millimetres a month over 4.7 to 6.9 days, with 244.9 to 300.7 hours of sun and highs of 19.9 to 26.4 degrees. The countryside is green and the city can still be walked at midday.
39.2 millimetres across the four months, with 1.1 in July. Highs of 30.3 to 35.1 degrees, a record of 46.7 and up to 350.3 hours of sun a month. Only the first and last hours of the day are usable.
53.9 millimetres over 5.1 days, 244.9 hours of sun and highs of 26.1 degrees with lows of 12.6. The first rain settles the dust and the heat has already eased.
From 54.3 to 66.1 millimetres a month over some 6.5 days, with 187.6 to 201.0 hours of sun. Highs of 16.0 to 20.2 degrees, lows of 3.7 to 8.1 and humidity up to 79 per cent.
