Barcelona or Cape Town: which climate?
Barcelona (Spain) has a humid subtropical climate, whereas Cape Town (South Africa) has a warm-summer mediterranean climate, according to the Köppen-Geiger classification.
The values compared here are normals computed over 86 complete calendar years, from 1940 to 2025, using ERA5 reanalysis data from the Copernicus programme. The same method and the same period apply to Barcelona and to Cape Town.
Cape Town is warmer than Barcelona by 1.3 °C in annual average: 16.3 °C against 15.0 °C.
Barcelona gets more rain than Cape Town: 619 mm per year against 539 mm.
Cape Town gets 10.9 hours of sunshine per day on average, against 10.2 hours in Barcelona.
Barcelona has warmed by +2.0 °C between 1940 and 2025, against +0.8 °C in Cape Town. Barcelona is therefore warming faster than Cape Town. Both trends are statistically significant.
Barcelona averages 3 hot days (≥ 30 °C) and 2 frost days per year; Cape Town averages 0 and 0.
Data from ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service), redistributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Normals are recomputed whenever the archive is updated.
| Indicator | Barcelona | Cape Town | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily temperature | 15.0 °C | 16.3 °C | +1.3 °C |
| Average daily high | 18.5 °C | 18.7 °C | negligible |
| Average daily low | 12.0 °C | 14.4 °C | +2.4 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 619 mm | 539 mm | -80 mm |
| Sunshine / day | 10.2 h | 10.9 h | +0.7 h |
| Hot days (≥ 30 °C) | 3 d/yr | 0 d/yr | negligible |
| Frost days (< 0 °C) | 2 d/yr | 0 d/yr | negligible |
| Rainy days (≥ 1 mm) | 95 d/yr | 77 d/yr | -18 d/yr |
| Mean relative humidity | 78 % | 78 % | negligible |
| Average peak wind | 15.5 km/h | 26.3 km/h | +10.8 km/h |
A difference is only reported when it exceeds the resolution of the data. ERA5 is a reanalysis on a grid of about 31 km: two nearby cities often fall in the same cell, and below half a degree you are reading the grid, not the climate.