El Salvador Climate Patterns

El Salvador is tropical, and altitude does the work that latitude does elsewhere. The coast is hot and humid year-round, generally 28-34°C; the highlands around Apaneca and Ataco, at 1,200-1,800 metres, are pleasantly mild and cool at night; the Santa Ana crater rim can be genuinely cold in the wind.

There are two seasons rather than four. The dry season, November to April, is reliably sunny — and by March the country is dusty and hazy with agricultural burning. The wet season, May to October, follows a daily pattern: clear mornings, building cloud, a heavy afternoon storm, clear evening.

Because this is the Pacific coast, direct hurricane strikes are rare — but Pacific and Caribbean storm systems both bring heavy rain, and the real hazard is what that rain does on steep deforested slopes. Landslides and flash floods are the country's recurring disaster, not wind.