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Best Time to Travel to Saudi-Arabia
Saudi Arabia occupies much of the Arabian Peninsula. There are borders with Jordan and Iraq as well as Oman and Yemen. In the east there is a rather small coastline to the Gulf with several border lines to other Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia is characterized by desert or desert-like areas. But there are also some plateaus in the country
On the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula there is a small coastal plain on the Arabian Sea. This is followed by the sandy desert of Rub al Khali and leads into the hilly region of Hadhramaut and Dhofar. In the west are coastal plains on the Red Sea at the foot of the mountains.
Basically, the Arabian Peninsula can be described as very dry. A certain exception are the higher mountains, where it rains a little more. In the North you can make out a certain rainy season from November to April - but it doesn't rain that much.
The summers in Saudi Arabia are very warm to say the least, actually mostly very hot. From May to September the temperatures rise towards 50 ° C. While the humidity on the coasts is slightly higher, it is very dry and hot in the inland, so the heat seems a bit more bearable. The humidity can be felt much more strongly on the coasts, and the nights in summer can be very uncomfortably humid and oppressive.
Interestingly, in inland Saudi Arabia and in the higher regions in the north-west, the thermometer can fall far enough in winter that it can get frosty and snow can fall. The winters in the desert regions are always very cool, at least at night. In the desert regions, winds always have a very unpleasant effect - be it in summer or in winter. They always bring a lot of sand and make the weather very uncomfortable.
At the Red Sea or around Jeddah it is usually quite hot, but you notice the humidity a lot more here. At night in summer it stays very warm and stuffy. It gets cooler here, especially between December and March, although temperatures of up to 30 ° C can still be expected.
The East Coast on the Gulf of Arabia is hot in summer and the humidity is high then. The winters are mild, whereby the temperatures can go towards 0 ° C as a result of cool north winds. The humidity is much lower when dry winds from the North blow over the region. Basically, the East Coast is considered to be rather dry. If it rains significantly, it is usually between November and February.
The best time for Saudi Arabia is likely to be between April and May and between September and November. Usually this is a good time to travel, but you have to expect surprises in Saudi Arabia too. Most recently, heavy rain was reported from North Saudi Arabia in March 2017. For example, the Riyadh Central region reported an extreme weather event with heavy rains and floods.
