Weather in Antofagasta in December

Prime time. December is about as good as Antofagasta gets. Highs average 20.1 °C, lows 16.3 °C, and rain falls on 0 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

Antofagasta barely has seasons. December scores 100 out of 100 against a best of 100 in January — a gap small enough that the month you choose matters far less here than the week you choose.

Rain is not a factor worth planning around this month. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average December reaches 30 °C; the day barely swings — 3.8 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 22.6 °C and the coldest night fell to 13.8 °C.

December is dependably dry, and that reliability is the point: across the twenty years measured, the wettest December on record still only managed 13 mm, and the driest managed 0 mm. There is no meaningful variability to plan around, which makes this one of the few months anywhere that you can build a fixed outdoor itinerary against without a fallback. The wettest single day in twenty years of Decembers brought 4 mm. Rain simply is not the variable that decides this trip — heat, crowds and cost are.

Wind is light at 10.3 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 77%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How December sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 1.7 °C warmer than November, and January adds another 1.7 °C. Late in the month feels noticeably different from the start of it, which is worth knowing if the trip is short.

Daylight in December

December is at or near the longest days of Antofagasta's year: 13.6 hours of daylight, holding steady all month. Evenings are the real gain — dinner outdoors still happens in full light.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 19.8 °C in December — swimmable, but it takes a moment to commit. The sea peaks at 22.4 °C in February and bottoms out at 15.3 °C — water lags the air by a month or two, which is why the best swimming often comes after the best weather.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead. If the dates are flexible, November is the trade worth considering — 5 points weaker on weather, and materially quieter.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

December in Antofagasta versus nearby

If Antofagasta is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Salta is the weaker option in December — 11.5 °C warmer, 15 days more rain. Arica is the weaker option in December — 13.2 °C warmer, the same number of rain days.

So: December is effectively as good as it gets here — 0 points behind January, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Antofagasta

See all twelve months in Antofagasta, or where else to go in December.