Timbuktu weather by month & the best time to visit

🇲🇱 Mali · small town · hot desert climate

The best time to visit Timbuktu is January — its sunniest month (Sunshine Score 100/100), with February and December close behind. Timbuktu averages about 3,597 hours of sunshine a year. Daytime highs around 29°C / 84°F and roughly 1 mm of rain in January.

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Sun hours / year

3,597

Sunniest month

January

Peak score

100/100

Rain / year

257 mm

Midday UV at peak

11 (extreme)

Population

84k

Elevation

263 m

When is the best time to visit Timbuktu?

For sunshine, the best time to visit Timbuktu is January, then February and December. The dullest month is May (0/100, 4 mm of rain). The full month-by-month picture is in the table below.

How sunny is Timbuktu?

Timbuktu is one of the sunniest places on Earth: about 3,597 hours of sunshine a year. 100 Sunshine Score points separate January (100) from May (0), so the month you pick matters. It ranks #2 of 5 destinations in Mali for annual sunshine, above the national median of 3,252 hours. Rain is strongly seasonal here: roughly 85% of the year's 257 mm falls in the three months around August.

Sunshine Score by month

See Timbuktu on the interactive sunshine globe →

Nearby places for sunshine

• Ouagadougou Burkina Faso · 513 km · best in Jan · 3,087 h sun/yr
• Niamey Niger · 664 km · best in Jan · 3,305 h sun/yr
• Bamako Mali · 707 km · best in Dec · 3,087 h sun/yr
• Tamanrasset Algeria · 1,113 km · best in Jan · 3,864 h sun/yr
• Kumasi Ghana · 1,124 km · best in Jan · 1,964 h sun/yr
• Lomé Togo · 1,263 km · best in Jan · 2,104 h sun/yr

Nearest destinations

• Mopti Mali · 272 km · 3,235 h sun/yr · best in Jan
• Gao Mali · 325 km · 3,612 h sun/yr · best in Jan
• Bobo Dioulasso Burkina Faso · 636 km · 3,007 h sun/yr · best in Dec
• Bordj Badji Mokhtar Algeria · 662 km · 3,773 h sun/yr · best in Jan