Climate risk in Cape Town
Western Cape, South Africa
Main risks in Cape Town
Heat, downpours and earthquakes threaten Cape Town less than most of the world's 626 large cities.
The sea at Cape Town is projected to rise 22 cm by 2050 if emissions level off. [1]
Counted from the 1995-2014 average; 17 cm of it comes after 2020. Higher than 70% of the world's large coastal cities.
For comparison: Lagos 23 cm, Abidjan 23 cm, Tokyo 21 cm.
22 cm Natural Earth Sea level rise by 2050 over the 1995-2014 average, if emissions level off
This week in Cape Town
This week's forecast risk around the city, by day and by hour, and the hazard events near it now. [2] [3]
This week's forecast for the city cannot be shown here right now.
Open the city on the mapThe Earth right now
The Earth's pulse reads the whole world, not this city, so it is the same on every city's page.
Earth's pulse, from 0 to 100. It rises with the number of people in the path of disasters now under way; 90 matches the 2004 tsunami.
Open the live mapWhere else Cape Town stands out
extremely high
Water stress [4]
The top grade of its scale, shared by 30% of the world's large cities.
Around the city on the map
Water stress
Natural Earth Cape Town's climate in the 2050s
2041-2060 compared with 1991-2020, if emissions level off [5] [6]
By the 2050s, Cape Town's climate will be unlike any large city's today, its own included; of the other cities, Port Elizabeth (South Africa) comes closest.
+0.9 °C
Mean temperature over the year
+1.0 °C
Average daily high, warmest month
+0.8 °C
Average nightly low, coldest month
-13%
Precipitation over the year
If emissions keep rising, it will differ even more from the climate of every large city today.
Climates are compared on seasonal temperature and rainfall alone, each difference weighed against the city's usual swings from year to year (the method of Mahony et al. 2017); heat waves, the heat of city streets and the rising sea are left out. All 3 estimates from the climate models, the middle one and the two ends of their range, point to Port Elizabeth. [7]
Everything else measured
From the highest among the world's 626 large cities to the lowest.
| Reading | Cape Town | Among 626 large cities | Rank in South Africa (1 = highest) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earthquake shaking on firm ground, 10% chance in 50 years [8] | moderate shaking, 0.05 g | higher than 46% of large cities | Rank in South Africa (1 = highest): 2 of 6 |
| Days with 20 mm of rain or more in 2025 [9] | 6 days | higher than 37% of large cities | Rank in South Africa (1 = highest): 5 of 6 |
| Tropical nights in 2025, over 20 °C [9] | 1 night | higher than 14% of large cities | Rank in South Africa (1 = highest): 4 of 6 |
| Drought risk [4] | Medium-High | the same grade as 38% of large cities; higher than 12%, lower than 50% | |
| Warming by 2050, if emissions level off [6] | +1.2 °C | higher than 4% of large cities | Rank in South Africa (1 = highest): 6 of 6 |
| Hottest day of 2025 [9] | 27.7 °C | higher than 3% of large cities | Rank in South Africa (1 = highest): 6 of 6 |
| Hot days in 2025, over 35 °C [9] | 0 days | like 37% of large cities | |
| River flood depth, 100-year event [10] | Dry at the centre; other districts can flood | like 85% of large cities | |
| Share of the land around the centre (a 10 km square) that a 100-year flood from the sea puts under 0.5 m of water or more [10] | 0% today and by 2080 if emissions keep rising | like 74% of large coastal cities | |
| Share of land sinking over 1 cm a year, within 15 km [11] | 1% | higher than at least 80% of large cities | |
| Land burned in an average year [12] | 0% | like 84% of large cities | |
| Tropical cyclone wind, once in 100 years [13] | No hurricane or typhoon reaches here | like 71% of large cities |
- Flood depth is given for one 1 km square at the city centre, in today's climate.
- Earthquake shaking is given for firm ground in g, the acceleration of gravity: around 0.1 g shaking is strong and can cause light damage, on the US Geological Survey's scale. The figure is the typical value over all the land within 15 km of the centre, not that of one point. Soft ground, such as an old lake bed or river silt, shakes harder.
- Land subsidence comes from a model of satellite radar measurements from 2013 to 2019 in 2 km squares, read over all the land within 15 km of the centre rather than at one point.
- Water stress is the share of the available water drawn every year. Drought risk is how often droughts come, against the area's own usual rain, and how many people and how much farmland they would reach. Both are graded on WRI's own scale.
- If emissions level off: the IPCC's SSP2-4.5 scenario.
- Water stress and drought risk have no rank in the country: they are steps of a scale, and many cities share one.
- Tsunamis and landslides are not rated for a single city here.
The nearest large cities
Distance from centre to centre.
- Port Elizabeth · South Africa · 660 km
- Johannesburg · South Africa · 1,260 km
- Durban · South Africa · 1,270 km
- Benoni · South Africa · 1,280 km
Large cities in South Africa
Sources
- IPCC AR6 Sea Level Projections: sea level rise
- Environment and Climate Change Canada: Global Deterministic Prediction System (GDPS): the week's forecast map
- NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS): wildfire near the city now
- Aqueduct 4.0 Water Risk Framework: water stress, drought risk
- TerraClimate: the 2050s comparison
- NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP-CMIP6): the 2050s comparison, warming
- Mahony, Cannon, Wang and Aitken (2017). A closer look at novel climates: new methods and insights at continental to landscape scales. Global Change Biology 23, 3934-3955: how climates are compared
- GSHAP Global Seismic Hazard Map: earthquake shaking
- ERA5 Single Levels Daily Statistics: heavy rain, nights, hottest day, hot days
- Aqueduct Floods Hazard Maps: river flood depth, coastal floods
- Global Land Subsidence Mapping Reveals Widespread Loss of Aquifer Storage Capacity: sinking land
- Global Biomass Burning at 500 m (GFED500): burned land
- IRIS: the Imperial College Storm Model dataset: tropical cyclone wind
Cite or embed
Cite this page
In a line
Source: Criora (criora.com), based on IPCC, ECCC, NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), WRI, TerraClimate, NEX-GDDP-CMIP6, GSHAP, ECMWF, HydroShare, GFED500, IRIS
APA
Criora. (2026). Cape Town, South Africa: climate risk profile [Data set]. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://criora.com/atlas/ZAF/cape-town BibTeX
@misc{criora_atlas_ZAF_cape_town_2026,
author = {{Criora}},
title = {Cape Town, South Africa: climate risk profile},
year = {2026},
url = {https://criora.com/atlas/ZAF/cape-town},
urldate = {2026-11-04}
} The figures may be reused on the terms of their sources, which this page names.
Embed on your site
Free, no account needed. The widget has no script and shows the figures of this page. Keep its link to the source.