Britons have been warned a heatwave could be on the way this week, with temperatures soaring above 30C – but in the hottest country in the world, these conditions would be nothing special. Burkina Faso, in a landlocked country in West Africa bordered by Mali and Niger, is thought to be one of the hottest nations in the world with an average annual temperature of 29.3C, according to HowStuffWorks.com.
However, conditions vary considerably across the country, with more extreme hot weather seen in the north, as per the outlet. Burkina Faso’s hot – or particularly hot – season occurs from March to May, with the mercury rising above 40C in some areas.
The country is split by three climate zones north to south – the scorchingly hot Sahelian zone in the north which sees less than than 600mm of rainfall per year, the Sudano-Sahelian region which is situated on a savanna plateau and sees between 600-900mm/year, and the humid Sudanian zone in the south (averaging at between 900-1200mm/year), as per the Climate Knowledge Portal.
According to the Climate Centre, temperatures remain high over winter, dropping only to monthly minimum temperatures of 17C in Decemeber and January.
Britain recorded 40C for the first time ever in 2022 during a heatwave and drought, with Coningsby in Lincolnshire seeing the highest temperature (40.3C) on July 19, as per The Guardian.
Major incidents were declared by fire brigades in London, Leicestershire and South Yorkshire with multiple fires breaking out. There was also reportedly widespread travel disruption and power systems issues, as well as over 1,000 excess deaths among older people around the heatwave’s peak, which lasted four days.
World Population Review lists four West African countries in the top five hottest, starting with Senegal which was said to have an average temperature of 29.8C in 2020, followed by Mali (29.6C), Burkina Faso (29.6C), and Gambia in fifth with 29C.
Djibouti in East Africa came fourth with an average of 29.4C that year, according to the website.
Two Middle Eastern nations, The United Arab Emirates and Oman, also feature in the top 10, as well as Guinea-Bissau, and Benin in West Africa, and Mauritania in the northwest of the continent, with average temperatures in those countries that year ranging from 28.5 to 28.7C.
Meanwhile, the coldest country on earth by average yearly temperature is Canada (-5.35C), closely followed by Russia (-5.10C), which is also often named the chilliest globally, as per World Atlas. Mongolia is said to be the third coldest with an average temperature of -0.70C.