Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, is a country located in southern Africa, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and almost entirely occupied by a plateau, at an altitude between 1,200 and 1,600 meters, which tempers the climate. There are three main seasons:

• a rainy season, hot and humid, from mid-November to mid-March, followed by a period, from mid-March to mid-May, when the rains become rare but the temperatures are still high;
• a cool season, dry and sunny, from mid-May to mid-August;
• and a period of intense heat at the end of the dry season, between mid-August and mid-November, before the rains that come during the month of November, and are able to lower a bit the temperature while increasing relative humidity.

This kind of climate, with a long dry season, produces almost everywhere a savannah landscape, except in the highest mountains, where forests are found. The highest peak is Mount Nyangani, 2,592 meters high, located in the east, in the Nyanga National Park.

In much of the country, annual rainfall ranges from 550 to 900 millimeters. The rains occur primarily in the form of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. The wettest regions are the north and the east, while the driest region is the south, in the Limpopo Valley, on the border with South Africa, where rainfall drops below 400 mm per year.

In the latter region, the altitude drops to around 500/600 meters, while in the south-eastern strip, at the border with Mozambique, where the Gonarezhou National Park is found, it goes down to around 200/300 meters. Another area where the altitude drops to around 500 meters is found in the north and is that of Lake Kariba. It goes without saying that the areas where the altitude is lower are also the hottest, and in October and November, highs can reach 40°C.