Het weer in Jacó, Costa Rica in november

November here is the rainy season's last real month, and regulars describe a specific daily shape to it: clear days with thunderstorms arriving reliably around six each evening, rather than rain spread evenly through the day. Our row carries the season's tail at 280.2mm across 25.5 days, still substantial, at 87.6 percent humidity - air reads 29.1C but as a real 35C, over 24.6C nights. The board's honest caveat is that Costa Rica has a dozen microclimates, so rain elsewhere on a given day says little about here. A four-wheel-drive is worth having for the last of the season's soft roads. The foliage is at its greenest now, before the dry months bleach it back. The sea is 28.7C. The record: 9.1 hours of sun, a 10.8 kph wind and one of this project's cleanest air readings at AQI 22.

Regulars are specific this area reads as genuinely drier than areas further south along the same coast, where the rainy season doesn't properly end until mid-to-late December, though conditions here have shifted from the old reputation of reliably rain-free North winds - even the tail end of the month can now bring real rain some years. Our row backs that hot, genuinely wet read, 27.6C reading as a scorching 33C, over 24C nights feeling 29C, with a substantial 278.6mm of rain across 28.5 days and humidity at 86 percent. Regulars are consistent Costa Rica's weather is genuinely location-dependent given how many separate weather systems affect the country, no single verdict applying evenly countrywide. The sea sits at a bath-warm 29.1C. The record: 9.9 hours of sun, a 9.7 kph wind and AQI 32.

The consensus on April for this coast is that it is transitional - not the driest, nowhere near the wettest - and our row proves it exactly: 242.9mm here against 581.8mm in May and 829.3mm in October. What the numbers cannot show is the timing, and the board supplies it: rain on the central Pacific coast comes in the afternoon or overnight, it is warm rain, and the weather apps that promise rain all day every day are wrong about the shape while right about the odds. Our 27.6 rainy days is that same statement. Pack fast-drying clothes rather than cotton, and something light to keep it off. Heat holds at 29.1C reading as 36C, with a 30.3C sea. The record: humidity 83 percent, 10.4 hours of sun and AQI 36.

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.

March is inside the driest and hottest stretch of the Costa Rican year, and our row's 19.7 precipitation days would say otherwise until you read the phrase regulars use: intermittent thunderstorms that do not produce much rain. That is 87.4mm spread across those days, under five millimetres each. Being socked in for days would be strange now; rain is always possible and rarely severe. What the dry season does bring is heat on the coast - 29.6C over a 25.4C night reads as 36C and 30C at 77 percent humidity, and with the Pacific at 29.9C there is nothing cool to get into. Their own figures, high 80s by day and mid 70s at night, match ours closely. The record: 11 hours of sun, a 12.4 kph wind and AQI 38.