1. Home
  2. Collections: Topic guides
Last updated 20 Aug 2025

Sahel: Heatwave 2024

Upload your content
Image
Goat heareder walking through the Sahel
Shutterstock

Introduction

At the end of March and the beginning of April 2024, the Sahel and parts of West Africa experienced an exceptional heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 45°C across the region. In Burkina Faso, minimum nighttime temperatures remained as high as 32°C, while Kayes in Mali recorded an extreme 48.5°C on 3 April. Reports of dangerous heat conditions came from Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad. In many of these countries, widespread power cuts during the heatwave made it even more difficult for communities to cope.

Heatwaves are among the deadliest forms of extreme weather, and their full human impact is often unknown for months. Early reports indicated a surge in hospital admissions and deaths at Gabriel Touré Hospital in Bamako, Mali, between 1-4 April. The event also coincided with the end of Ramadan, placing additional strain on vulnerable populations and already stretched health systems. Scientific analyses indicate that a heatwave of this severity would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change.

You can explore a set of curated resources below to learn more.

Country and region
Africa

Knowledge base

Heatwave on the city
Research briefs
In Africa, heat waves are hotter and longer than 40 years ago, UIC researchers say

Heat waves — prolonged periods of abnormally hot weather — influence egg prices, energy bills and even public transit. And they’re becoming more common as temperatures increase.

University of Illinois Chicago (UIC)
Update
Climate change has doubled the world’s heatwaves: how Africa is affected

A review of extreme heat has found that between May 2024 and May 2025, nearly half the world's people (49% or 4 billion) suffered through an extra 30 days of temperatures that were hotter than those experienced 90% of the time between 1991 and 2020.

Conversation Media Group, the
Children at a school
Update
Urban forests in Niger’s schoolyards serve climate resilience and education

An unusual subject has found its way into the curriculum of schools in Niger: trees. As municipal authorities in the country work to adapt to extreme heat and other effects of climate change, the value of urban forestry has gained increased recognition

Mongabay
Sun over traditional West African homes along the Niger river shore
Update
Human-caused climate change fuels extreme heat in Africa’s Sahel region: Burkina Faso and Mali

Unusually hot temperatures forecast over the next four days (March 4-8) in Burkina Faso and parts of Mali in Africa's Sahel region, a highly climate-vulnerable part of the world, are at least five times more likely due to human-caused climate change.

Climate Central
Cover
Documents and publications
Projected intensification and expansion of heat stress and related population exposure over Africa under future climates

In this study two heat stress indices (HI and UTCI) were applied to to assess the robust changes in heat stress over Africa during the late 21st century under the SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 forcing scenarios.

Earth's Future (AGU)
Two proud African girls carrying heavy household items on their head
Update
Almost half a billion children live in areas experiencing at least twice as many extremely hot days as their grandparents

One in 5 children - or 466 million - live in areas that experience at least double the number of extremely hot days every year compared to just six decades ago, according to a new UNICEF analysis.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Update
From the Philippines to Mali, countries struggle to count heat deaths

Heat-related deaths are rising amid climate change, but many countries struggle to collect the data.

Context
Research briefs
Record-breaking heat and humidity predicted for tropics this summer

A new statistical analysis of the interaction between El Niño and rising global temperatures due to climate change concludes that the approaching summer in the tropics has nearly a 7 in 10 chance of breaking records for temperature and humidity.

University of California, Berkeley
Women irrigate and till the soil in a garden
Research briefs
Extreme Sahel heatwave that hit highly vulnerable population at the end of Ramadan would not have occurred without climate change

At the end of March and the beginning of April 2024 a region across the Sahel and West Africa experienced extreme heat, with maximum temperatures in the Sahel reaching more than 45°C.

World Weather Attribution
Blurry image of a sunny urban skyline
Update
How Nigeria is reeling from extreme heat fueled by climate change

With records of heat and its impacts lacking in Nigeria, Carbon Brief speaks to doctors, farmers and meteorologists about how this episode of extreme weather is affecting the country.

Carbon Brief