I ran across a resident of Santiago de Puriscal on one of the Costa Rica forums recently.
As the crow flies that’s about ten miles from our place. (Were Guacimo de Atenas) I’m not sure if we can see her place from ours, but we CAN see Puriscal. On a very clear day, we can see individual homes/buildings.

Connie wrote on the forum that since March 20, they had had 65 inches of rain! I was flabbergasted because we have had less than five inches!

All the experts talk about the microclimates at work in Costa Rica and this is the perfect illustration.

Here’s what she reports –

We’re about 3 km southwest of the centro of Santiago de Puriscal. Hwy 239 (that is part of the route to Quepos/Parrita) runs in front of our house. Our elevation is about 3,900 ft /1190 m a.s.l.

We got 5.1 inches on Friday and about 3/4 inch today (won’t know for today until I check it in the morning and enter it in the records I’m keeping). My rain gauge goes up to 6 inches. When we’re away overnight, our gardener notes the rainfall amounts. As of today, since March 20th, we have averaged 1.03 inches of rain per day in the last 68 days. The total as of today (Saturday, May 26) is 70.2 inches. I don’t know the maximum we’ve gotten, but I did have a day last year where I emptied my old 5 inch rain gauge twice in one day! I started keeping a log of daily rainfall after we got our new rain gauge. We did actually have a dry seaon this year of ~2 1/2 months, with only a few very light sprinkles, up until March 20th.

We frequently have fog in the afternoons when the clouds bump into the mountains. We are not right at the top of a mountain or ridge, but just about 200 feet below it.

I’m glad there are people like Connie that can live in those conditions. I’m already whining about the late afternoon showers and how the clouds really screw up my day.

So a few miles away and a few hundred feet higher, they are living in another climate entirely.