Does it rain much in Morocco, and when is the rainy season?

Morocco is a dry country overall, and the rain it does get is squeezed into the cooler half of the year, roughly November through March. But "rainy season" gives the wrong impression if you are picturing a tropical monsoon. Even in the wettest months you tend to get bursts of rain over a few days, then clear skies again, rather than weeks of constant downpour. I have guided plenty of January trips where we had two grey mornings and the rest brilliant sunshine.

Geography decides everything here. The north and the Atlantic coast catch the wet Atlantic systems first, so Tangier, Chefchaouen, Fes and Rabat see the most rain, and the northern hills can be genuinely lush and green in winter and spring, something that surprises people who only know the desert image. Once you cross the Atlas into the south-east, where I am based, rainfall collapses. Parts of the deep south get less than 100mm a year, and a desert village can go many months without a drop. That rain shadow is exactly why the Sahara is there.

The flip side of desert dryness is that when it does rain in the south, it can come hard and fast, and dry riverbeds, the oueds, can flash-flood within minutes. I have rerouted desert drives because a wadi that was dust in the morning became a brown torrent after a storm in the mountains far away. It is brief and localised, but it is the one rain risk I take seriously in the south, far more than the gentle drizzle of the north.

For planning, the takeaways are easy. If you want the greenest landscapes and do not mind some grey days, the north in late winter and spring is beautiful. If you want maximum dry sunshine, the shoulder seasons of April–May and September–October are reliably clear nearly everywhere. And if you are heading deep into the desert in winter, just keep the itinerary a little flexible around the rare but real chance of a flash flood after distant rain.