San José weather in January

January opens the hottest, driest run of the Costa Rican year, with strong sun and lower humidity - and regulars still say to expect some rain most days, generally in the afternoon or at night. Our 22.2 precipitation days across 120.4mm is that, five millimetres a day, and one visitor's accounting is the clearest version: roughly eight hours of rain across a week, five of them after dark. Their weather apps had predicted rain daily. The date worth knowing is the 6th: the first days of January are peak holiday travel, and waiting until after about then means the Christmas crowds have gone and prices ease, though it stays high season. A light poncho and a small umbrella cover it. The record: 28.4C over 24.4C reading as 34C, a 28.9C sea and AQI 33.

Forum posters generally rate August as a good month to visit Costa Rica overall, describing a typical lowland or coastal day as sunny and hot in the morning with rain, sometimes heavy, moving in during the afternoon or evening - a pattern posters say leaves the landscape noticeably greener. San Jose itself, at over 1,100m elevation, runs noticeably milder than those hotter coastal descriptions, with comfortable daytime highs rather than genuine heat. Posters are direct that late August specifically can turn genuinely rainy, and while Pacific-slope rain is usually confined to afternoon and evening, posters emphasize there's no guarantee during rainy season. One visitor's second-half-of-August trip found mostly good weather, though posters are consistent that predicting exact conditions for specific dates isn't really possible. Posters generally rate August as workable and even good for a San José-area visit, rain gear recommended regardless.

February is deep in Costa Rica's dry season, and San José sits at altitude, so it runs cooler than the coasts — near 26°C by day, dropping to 17 at night. "Dry season" is the forum's own phrase and their own caveat: it does not mean it cannot rain, and eight wet days is the record's answer. Regulars pack an umbrella regardless. Two regional notes matter more than the capital's own weather: the Caribbean side is reliably rainier and cloudier than the Pacific in February, and Guanacaste gets serious wind this month while La Fortuna, Monteverde and Manuel Antonio generally do not.