Weather in Arica in May

A good month. May is a solid month to be in Arica. Highs average 33.3 °C, lows 21 °C, and rain falls on 0 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

May ranks 5 of 12 in Arica: past the worst of the year but short of June, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain is not a factor worth planning around this month. Pack for 33.3 °C days and 21 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 5 days clear 35 °C, so a serious heatwave is normal rather than notable. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest May day reached 38 °C and the coldest night fell to 17.1 °C.

May is dependably dry, and that reliability is the point: across the twenty years measured, the wettest May on record still only managed 1 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 Mays brought 0 mm. Rain simply is not the variable that decides this trip — heat, crowds and cost are.

Wind is light at 6.4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 46%.

How May sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 33.7 °C in April, 33.3 here, 32.4 in June. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in May

May sits at the dark end of Arica's year — 11.3 hours of daylight against 13.2 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 20.5 °C in May — swimmable, but it takes a moment to commit. The sea peaks at 24.3 °C in February and bottoms out at 17.1 °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

Busy. Popular without being frantic; book the things you care about, improvise the rest.

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

May in Arica versus nearby

If Arica is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Arequipa is a better bet in May — 8.3 °C cooler, the same number of rain days. Antofagasta is a better bet in May — 15.2 °C cooler, the same number of rain days.

So: May is effectively as good as it gets here — 4 points behind June, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Arica

See all twelve months in Arica, or where else to go in May.