Weather in Limón in January

Shoulder season. January sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. You should expect rain on 17 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

Limón barely has seasons. January scores 58 out of 100 against a best of 64 in February — a gap small enough that the month you choose matters far less here than the week you choose.

Rain on 17 days, 5 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 85% nothing dries, including you.

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 January reaches 30 °C; the day barely swings — 3.5 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest January day reached 29.2 °C and the coldest night fell to 22.5 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 111 mm — roughly 65% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. January rainfall has ranged from 27 mm to 735 mm across the twenty years measured — a 708 mm spread around an average of 170 mm. The average is real but almost no individual January looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 5.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity at 85% is the real story though — it is the number that decides how the day feels, not the 27.7 °C.

How January sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 28.1 °C in December, 27.7 here, 28.1 in February. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain has already shifted: 6 days fewer than December had.

Daylight in January

Limón sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 11.6 hours in January, against a range of just 1.2 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 27.4 °C in January — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. The sea peaks at 29.1 °C in September and bottoms out at 27.3 °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

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself. January is the value pick for Limón: it scores within 6 points of February without carrying February's prices.

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

January in Limón versus nearby

If Limón is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. San Isidro is a better bet in January — within a degree on temperature, 4 days less rain. San José is a better bet in January — 3.3 °C cooler, 8 days less rain.

So: January is effectively as good as it gets here — 6 points behind February, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Limón

See all twelve months in Limón, or where else to go in January.