If you live in a place like London, New York, Chicago, Berlin or Toronto, most likely you are planning your activities and travel around the forecasts of your weather app. If you live in the tropics, you probably learned quickly, that a weather app for a place like Costa Rica is completely useless. Here is why…
This past weekend, we received a message from one of our Cayuga Collection Loyalty members about the weather in the rainy season and the Accuweather forecast.
Hello Cayuga,
We are looking to travel mid-August. Most likely 12-20. We know it rains but want to know better for surf and potentially some morning sun which is better. I’ve looked at the weather forecast, and it says t-storms or rain for all of this time. Is accuweather.com typical wrong?
It is not wrong, but it is not right either. It is just not telling you the whole story and how weather changes quickly from hour to hour in the tropics. So to put a picture of rain and thunderstorms every day might be quite misleading.
This is a message from a Cayuga Aficionado, that has been to Costa Rica several times and understands how the weather works during the rainy season. But the weather app put some doubts in their minds. It makes us wonder how many people just don’t consider traveling to the Tropics because of those forecasts? And they might go to Iceland, Norway or British Columbia instead. Talking about rain – cold rain…
Let’s take a look at the weather and the forecasts today, June 18th. Here is the weather forecast for Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica for the next days as well as a picture what it looked like at our Cayuga Collection Hotel Arenas del Mar this morning at 8:30 am.
Thunderstorms and rain all week. Yes, probably, but not all day. Most of the day, especially in the mornings will be sunny and warm. In the afternoon there might be some rain, great for a nap after your day activity.
And here is a picture taken at the pool of Kura Design Villas in Uvita, which is only one hour from Manuel Antonio, on June 18th at 8:30 am and the weather forecast of the week.
We have had guests consider canceling their reservations based on the AccuWeather forecasts. We were able to convince them not to do so and enjoy the glorious mornings of the ‘rainy’ season in Uvita.
What is the conclusion? Weather apps don’t work for tropical climates. The rainy season, or the Green Season as we prefer to refer to it here locally, is a great time to visit Costa Rica and other tropical countries like Panama or Nicaragua. It does rain. But typically not all day and the rains are warm. Everything is green and lush and the temperature does not drop like up north when rains move in.
Check out this video to understand what a day in the green season could look and feel like.
PS: Since weather patterns are changing all around the world, the boundaries between the dry and rainy seasons are not as marked anymore. This year, our January (which is supposed to be very dry) has seen prolonged periods of rainy days. We are sure you have experienced similar “crazy weather” where you live recently.
