Costa Rica weather

The pleasant, moderate tropical climate of Costa Rica is one of the things that explain the country’s popularity among retirees from all around the world who wish to live in a sunny place. Temperatures in the Central Valley range from 18º C to 27º C (64-80ºF) throughout the year. They are higher, though, in the coasts: The Caribbean shore is, with temperatures ranging from 25 to 27ºC (77-80ºF), slightly cooler than the Atlantic coast, where they vary between 31 and 38ºC (88-100ºF).

Costa Rica’s climate has only two seasons: the rainy season (called “winter” over there), ranging from May to November in the northern regions, and from April to December in the south, and the dry season (“summer”), the rest of the year. Certainly, talking about seasons is very relative, as each one of them has a more or less prolonged transition period, and indeed the sun shines many mornings during the rainy season, while storms and showers aren’t that rare during the so called “dry” season.



On top of all that, Costa Rica’s geography favors the existence of microclimates, in such a way that temperatures may vary wildly from one city to another and even from a moment of the day to just one hour later. There are two coastal plains, on the shores of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean respectively, and a central plain at 1160 meters (3500 ft) high, set apart from the coastal plains by two mountain ridges of about 1500 m (4500 ft) high on average each one.

This rugged topography ant the difficulty of communications are responsible for the extraordinary diversity of plants and wildlife in Costa Rica.