Ngorongoro in January

Credit: Kusini Camp

Ngorongoro Crater has a temperate climate characterised by rather chilly nights throughout the year but January is one of the warmest months, with an average daily maximum of 23°C and average minimum of 10°C. January generally marks the end of the so-called short rains, so it shouldn’t be all that wet, but the landscape retains a lush green appearance and the air tends to be crisp and clear. Ample resident mammal populations in the crater are further boosted by migrant herds of wildebeest as they disperse into the south of the Serengeti-Ngorongoro ecosystem, and the month also offers top notch bird watching thanks to the presence of large numbers of Palaearctic migrants and the tendency for many resident birds to display colourful breeding plumages during the rains.

Ngorongoro in September

The dry season that started in May or June should continue into August, leaving parts of the crater floor looking like a dust bowl and the remaining grassland all parched and yellow. The low vegetation is great for spotting animals, with predators being at their most conspicuous, and wildlife tends to congregate close to the few remaining sources of drinking water. This is peak safari…

Lake Ndutu and the Serengeti plains

Ngorongoro Conservation Area is essentially an eastern extension of the vast Serengeti-Mara ecosystem - indeed, it formed part of the original Serengeti National Park as it was gazetted in 1951 but was split off shortly afterwards to appease Maasai protests against being evicted from their traditional grazing lands. Today, the southeast of the conservation area, around Oldupai Gorge,…

Ngorongoro Crater

People visit the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is to see the eponymous crater. Ngorongoro is the world’s largest intact and unflooded caldera, the relict of a massive volcano formed by the same tectonic activity associated with the creation of the Great Rift Valley. In its prime, Ngorongoro would have towered as high as Kilimanjaro does today, but it collapsed in on itself around one-…

Ngorongoro in November

Ngorongoro Crater tends to be relatively warm and wet in November, with an average daily maximum temperature of 22°C, a nightly minimum of 10°C, and around 110mm of rainfall. These short rains are usually not so heavy as to have a negative impact on tourism, and they create an spring-like aura of regeneration to the landscape following the long dry season. Wildlife is plentiful, with…

Weather in Ngorongoro

Although Ngorongoro and the Crater Highlands stand in the heart of the tropics less than 200km south of the equator, the high elevation (mostly above 2,000m) means the climate is surprisingly cool, seldom rising above 25°C by day and more often than not dropping to below 10°C by night. It tends to be sunny by day, but cloudy weather is far from unusual and the gap in altitude between…

Family safari in the Ngorongoro

Ngorongoro and the other reserves that comprise Tanzania’s northern safari circuit are well suited to family and small group safaris. Cost-wise, since almost all safaris are undertaken in 4x4s with pop-up tops, the optimum group size is four or five individuals, though larger groups can always be split between two or more vehicles. It is generally a good idea for groups to be…

Popular Ngorongoro Crater Safaris

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