Month by month
Samburu in October
October is the turn. Rainfall goes from September's 1 mm to 44 mm across four rain days, while the afternoon stays hot at 32.0°C. The first storms settle the dust and start the green flush, and the game begins to move away from the river again.
If you only want the answer
A month that changes character as it goes. The first week or so still behaves like September, dry and concentrated, and by the end of it the short rains are announcing themselves. Prices change on a date rather than with the weather: high season on the flights runs to 31 October, low season starts on 1 November.
From one millimetre to forty-four
October's normals are 44 mm over four rain days, days of 32.0°C and nights of 20.3°C. That is a forty-fold increase on September, and it lands on ground that has taken 11 mm since the start of June.
The heat holds on. At 32.0°C October is the third hottest month, a few tenths below September, so the storms arrive without any relief in the afternoon temperature. What they do change is the air: the dust that has built up through the dry months comes out of it, and the light after a storm is the best of the year.
What the first rain changes on the ground
Four rain days do not undo four dry months. Seasonal water starts to appear in the luggas and the bush country, so the animals have options again and the concentration along the Ewaso Ng'iro loosens, though it does not disappear in October the way it does by November.
Green shoots bring the browsers and grazers out into country that was bare in September. Gerenuk, which take their moisture from leaves and almost never drink, and beisa oryx on the open ground are the easier finds now. Take a 4x4 with high clearance, since a lugga that was a dust track in September can carry water after an October storm.
The price changes on 31 October
Safarilink's 2026 timetable runs high season from 16 June to 31 October and low season from 1 November to 15 December. So the whole of October is peak scheduling, and a trip that starts a few days later sits in the cheap window, with heavier rain to go with it.
The reserve fee is unmoved by any of this. Samburu County charges $85 per non-resident adult and Isiolo County charges $70 at Buffalo Springs and Shaba, in October as in every other month, and neither county's law states how long a ticket is valid.