🇪🇬 Cairo vs 🇿🇦 Johannesburg

Hot desert — very hot dry summers, mild winters, virtually no rainfall

Cairo is one of the world's largest cities in one of the world's driest climates. Rain is essentially absent. Summers are brutally hot and dusty; winters are mild and perfect for sightseeing. The khamsin (hot desert wind) brings sandstorms in spring.

Johannesburg sits on the Highveld plateau at approximately 1,750m above sea level, giving it a subtropical highland climate with warm, thunderstorm-prone summers and dry, crisp winters with frequent frost. The city straddles the continental divide between the Limpopo and Vaal river systems, creating subtle drainage and elevation differences that influence local weather patterns. The world's largest urban forest — over 10 million planted trees — significantly modifies temperatures across the city, while mine dumps, ridges, and vast disparities in building density create pronounced microclimate variation between neighborhoods.