Caravana Pan Americana: Climate analysis — historical view 2004-12-05 (preserved 2009-09-10)

The Climate

The following chart is an analysis of the climate while we'll be travelling. The numbers after every country show the average number of days of rainfall for each month. (We'll be starting on September 30th.) Note also that the duration is only six months. The extra two months are reserved for travelling north through Central America.

This is somewhat simplified, as the climate differs widely for some countries. I've tried to reflect that in the description which follows each country.

	oct	nov	dec	jan	feb	mar
Colombia Bogotá	18	16	13	9	7	10
	There is an advantage to saving Colombia for the latter portion of our journey. Rainfall in October is fairly high.
Ecuador Quito	13	13	7	9	11	11
	Rainfall in Ecuador is roughly equal at the start and end of our journey.
Peru Lima	0	0	0	1	0	0
Cusco	8	12	16	18	13	11
	The two alternatives to passing through Peru (approximately November or February) are roughly equal.
Bolivia La Paz	9	11	18	21	18	16
Santa Cruz	7	8	11	14	10	12
	Rainfall in La Paz is approximately the same in the February time frame as it is in the November time frame.
Chile Santiago	3	1	0	0	0	1
	Chile gets very little rain year-round along the entire length of the country.
Argentina Buenos Aires	7	7	7	5	5	6
	The rain is fairly equal in Argentina year-round.
Paraguay Asunción	5	6	7	7	6	9
	Again, there is not a lot of variation in Paraguay.
Brazil Manaus	4	12	16	20	18	21
Brasilia	11	15	20	19	16	15
Rio de Janeiro	11	10	12	13	9	11
	The problem here is in Amazonia. While Rio and Brasilia have fairly conistent rain patterns, there is considerably more rain in March than October.

Based on this analysis, I've decided to take the clockwise route around South America. There are two advantages to this...

We can spend time in Colombia in March, when it will be much drier. The heavy rains in Colombia are in October and November as well as April and May.

The clockwise route allows us to travel through Brazil during the dry(er) season. The best time to visit Brazil is August to October (and April to June).