Costa Rica lies in the tropic between eight and eleven degrees north of the equator, about the same latitude as the southern tip of India. Because it is a small country without much latitude variation, one might expect the climate to be relatively uniform. Wrong. Climate can vary over short distances because of the rugged mountain chains that affect such factors as wind, rain, and temperature. The result is a series of microclimates where altitude is a key to change.

Microclimates make countrywide generalizations about rainfall and temperature misleading. What is helpful to the traveler are some rules of thumb for various regions, backed up with specifics for a few locations. We are going to hit the high spots; my apologies to climatologists for ignoring the intricacies.

Rainfall and Seasons

While spring and fall have little meaning here, summer and winter are tied to rainfall. Ticos call the dry season summer, which can stretch from December through April in some parts of the country. The winter designation is reserved for rainy months, which generally falls somewhere between May through November. It reverses the standard Northern Hemisphere understanding of which months are summer and which are winter, but it makes sense to ticos.