Cape Town or Miami: which climate?
Cape Town (South Africa) has a warm-summer mediterranean climate, whereas Miami (United States) has a tropical savanna 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 Cape Town and to Miami.
Miami is warmer than Cape Town by 8.1 °C in annual average: 24.4 °C against 16.3 °C.
Miami gets more rain than Cape Town: 1,041 mm per year against 539 mm.
Cape Town gets 10.9 hours of sunshine per day on average, against 10.6 hours in Miami.
Cape Town and Miami are warming at the same rate: about +0.8 °C between 1940 and 2025 on both sides.
Cape Town averages 0 hot days (≥ 30 °C) and 0 frost days per year; Miami averages 45 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 | Cape Town | Miami | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily temperature | 16.3 °C | 24.4 °C | +8.1 °C |
| Average daily high | 18.7 °C | 26.7 °C | +8.0 °C |
| Average daily low | 14.4 °C | 22.3 °C | +7.9 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 539 mm | 1,041 mm | +502 mm |
| Sunshine / day | 10.9 h | 10.6 h | -0.3 h |
| Hot days (≥ 30 °C) | 0 d/yr | 45 d/yr | +45 d/yr |
| Frost days (< 0 °C) | 0 d/yr | 0 d/yr | negligible |
| Rainy days (≥ 1 mm) | 77 d/yr | 162 d/yr | +85 d/yr |
| Mean relative humidity | 78 % | 75 % | -3 % |
| Average peak wind | 26.3 km/h | 21.3 km/h | -5.0 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.