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Costa Rica in December: Liberia, San José and Limón climate comparison
Compare Liberia, San José and Limón in December using the 2001-2025 NASA POWER series below to see how strongly the Pacific and Caribbean coasts diverge.
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These markers show locations with historical climate estimates for the surrounding area. Choose a location to see its climate table.
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Map data: Natural Earth
Location coordinates: Liberia, San José, Limón (Wikidata, CC0).
Why December favours North Pacific bases over the Caribbean coast
In the 2001-2025 December series, Liberia in northern Guanacaste records a mean temperature of 26.3 °C and just 0.6 mm/day of precipitation, and San José in the Central Valley averages 22.5 °C with 2.3 mm/day.
By contrast, Limón on the Caribbean coast averages 24.0 °C with 7.2 mm/day of precipitation in December, illustrating why Pacific and Caribbean stops cannot be planned from a single national weather assumption.
- Guanacaste and North Pacific (Liberia 26.3 °C, 0.6 mm/day): prime December window for coastal stays and dry-forest trails.
- Central Valley (San José 22.5 °C, 2.3 mm/day): mild upland temperatures suited to arrival and departure nights.
- Caribbean coast (Limón 24.0 °C, 7.2 mm/day): pack full rain protection and keep boat or trail plans flexible.
Sources: Costa Rica Climate Overview, Costa Rica Travel Resources and Gateways
Read the local month comparison
Across the selected points, mean monthly temperature ranges from 22.5 to 26.3 °C. Mean precipitation ranges from 0.6 to 7.2 mm per day. Those ranges describe this selected point comparison, not every destination in Costa Rica.
Use the comparison for trip planning
- Check which named point is relevant to the stops on your actual route.
- Use mean temperature as background for planning your activities. A monthly mean includes both daytime and night-time conditions.
- Keep alternatives for weather-dependent plans and check a local forecast close to departure.
- Do not infer rain hours, rainy-day counts or severe-weather risk from millimetres per day.
Source and processing
NASA POWER climatology, 2001-2025. The values are T2M (mean air temperature at two metres, °C) and PRECTOTCORR (mean corrected precipitation, mm/day). City coordinates come from Wikidata. Selection, month extraction, translation, rounding and table arrangement are changes to the original data. NASA POWER data licence: CC BY 4.0. Coordinates: CC0.
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Climate by month
These historical gridded estimates describe the area around each coordinate. They are not a forecast for a particular trip. Precipitation in millimetres per day is not a count of rainy days.
Liberia
Reference period 2001-2025 · Coordinates (latitude, longitude) 10.6296°, -85.4383°
| Month | Mean air temperature at 2 m (°C) | Mean precipitation (mm/day) |
|---|---|---|
| December | 26.3 | 0.6 |
San José
Reference period 2001-2025 · Coordinates (latitude, longitude) 9.9327°, -84.0796°
| Month | Mean air temperature at 2 m (°C) | Mean precipitation (mm/day) |
|---|---|---|
| December | 22.5 | 2.3 |
Limón
Reference period 2001-2025 · Coordinates (latitude, longitude) 10.0022°, -83.084°
| Month | Mean air temperature at 2 m (°C) | Mean precipitation (mm/day) |
|---|---|---|
| December | 24 | 7.2 |
Sources
- Costa Rica Climate Overview (Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (Visit Costa Rica)). Accessed
- Costa Rica Travel Resources and Gateways (Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (Visit Costa Rica)). Accessed
- NASA POWER Climatology API (NASA POWER). Accessed
- NASA POWER temporal data processing (NASA POWER). Accessed
- NASA POWER dataset and data licence (NASA / Registry of Open Data on AWS). Accessed
- Wikidata structured-data licensing (Wikimedia). Accessed
- Liberia coordinate record (Wikidata). Accessed
- San José coordinate record (Wikidata). Accessed
- Limón coordinate record (Wikidata). Accessed