Unmapped Dataworks

Free tools · Measured from space

Heat in Ward 23, Dr JS Moroka

Summer 2015/16: the ground in Ward 23, Dr JS Moroka reached about 51 °C on clear mornings. That is the ground (roofs, roads, soil), not the air.

Land surface temperature is how hot the ground itself is: roofs, roads, bare soil and leaves, as a satellite sees them from above. Landsat passes at about 10 in the morning and sees only through clear skies. It is not the air temperature a weather station gives: on a sunny day the ground is often 10 to 20 degrees hotter than the air, and hard, dark, dry surfaces heat up most while trees, grass and water stay cooler.

What it is not: not the afternoon peak, not the night, not the air you feel in the shade, and not a reading at any one house. A month with clouds rests on few clear looks.

Summer 2015/16

Every summer since 2016

The shape of a year

January: 42.3 °CFebruary: 37.1 °CMarch: 37.0 °CApril: 29.9 °CMay: 26.3 °CJune: 23.5 °CJuly: 23.9 °CAugust: 30.3 °CSeptember: 38.9 °COctober: 45.6 °CNovember: 43.5 °CDecember: 50.6 °CJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Each month’s average since 2014, clear mornings. Bars start at 21 °C.
Show the numbers
Land surface temperature by calendar month, since 2014: every figure
When or whatFigure
January42.3 °C
February37.1 °C
March37.0 °C
April29.9 °C
May26.3 °C
June23.5 °C
July23.9 °C
August30.3 °C
September38.9 °C
October45.6 °C
November43.5 °C
December50.6 °C

Month by month

MonthLand surface temperatureClear looks
October 202646.1 °C0.3
September 202635.7 °C0.3
August 202630.6 °C0.5
July 202623.6 °C0.5
June 202623.0 °C0.4
May 202623.1 °C0.4
April 2026Seen too little0.1
March 2026Seen too little0.0
February 202634.9 °C0.4
January 2026Seen too little0.2
December 2025Seen too little0.1
November 202534.4 °C0.3
October 202541.3 °C0.3
September 202537.4 °C0.4
August 202526.6 °C0.6
July 202523.1 °C0.6
June 202521.9 °C0.3
May 202522.8 °C0.5
April 202525.8 °C0.3
March 2025Seen too little0.1
February 2025Seen too little0.0
January 202538.0 °C0.3
December 2024Seen too little0.2
November 202451.5 °C0.3

“Clear looks” is how many times the average 240 m patch of the place was seen through clear sky that month. Under one, part of the place was not seen at all, so the figure leans on the part that was.

Dr JS Moroka and its wards · Every municipality, ranked

Source

Measured from space by the American Landsat satellites: the ground, not the air.

How we worked this out

Landsat 5 to 2011, Landsat 7 to bridge the gaps, Landsat 8 and 9 from 2013: different satellites pass at slightly different times, so compare summers within the same years first.

What we changed: we kept only the clear land cells (no cloud, cloud shadow, snow or water, with a margin round each cloud), read them at 480 m, and averaged them over each 2026 ward each month; larger places are the sums of their wards.

Landsat imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey (Landsat Collection 2 surface temperature, through Digital Earth Africa’s copy).

Dataset: land surface temperature by ward, release of 13 November 2026.

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