Dubai or Los Angeles: which climate?
Dubai (United Arab Emirates) has a hot desert climate, whereas Los Angeles (United States) has a hot-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 Dubai and to Los Angeles.
Dubai is warmer than Los Angeles by 10.0 °C in annual average: 27.4 °C against 17.4 °C.
Los Angeles gets more rain than Dubai: 352 mm per year against 76 mm.
Dubai has warmed by +2.5 °C between 1940 and 2025, against +1.7 °C in Los Angeles. Dubai is therefore warming faster than Los Angeles. Both trends are statistically significant.
Dubai averages 241 hot days (≥ 30 °C) and 0 frost days per year; Los Angeles averages 62 and 1.
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 | Dubai | Los Angeles | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily temperature | 27.4 °C | 17.4 °C | -10.0 °C |
| Average daily high | 33.7 °C | 23.9 °C | -9.8 °C |
| Average daily low | 21.7 °C | 12.4 °C | -9.3 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 76 mm | 352 mm | +276 mm |
| Sunshine / day | 11.3 h | 11.2 h | negligible |
| Hot days (≥ 30 °C) | 241 d/yr | 62 d/yr | -179 d/yr |
| Frost days (< 0 °C) | 0 d/yr | 1 d/yr | negligible |
| Rainy days (≥ 1 mm) | 11 d/yr | 31 d/yr | +20 d/yr |
| Mean relative humidity | 56 % | 63 % | +7 % |
| Average peak wind | 21.8 km/h | 13.3 km/h | -8.5 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.