Weather locations in Chile

Chile is the longest country on earth, and its 4,300 kilometres of latitude mean that describing a single Chilean climate is close to meaningless. Aridity and rainfall change in a straight line from north to south: desert in the north, a Mediterranean corridor in the middle, cool wet rainforest in the south and, beyond the ice fields, a cold subpolar and then Antarctic belt. Almost everything that happens climatically is linked to the Southern Hemisphere westerlies and to the rain shadow of the Andes.

Main climate types

Three belts cover most of the population. The far north, north of about 23 degrees south, is the Atacama Desert, where the driest sites receive under 15 mm a year and some stations have gone years without rain. Central Chile, from about 30 to 42 degrees south, has a Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers and rain almost entirely in winter. Southern Chile, from 42 degrees south to Patagonia, is cool temperate rainforest, wet all year and exposed to constant westerlies.

Temperatures

Means at Santiago range from about 8 °C in July to 20 °C in January, with hot, dry afternoons reaching the low thirties; coastal cities stay a few degrees cooler. In the northern desert the daily range is extreme, with days above 30 °C. In the south, Valdivia has July means near 6 °C and January means near 15 °C, while Patagonian winter stations average close to 2 °C and are constantly windy.

Rainfall

Rainfall follows the same gradient: almost none in the north, about 250 to 400 mm around Santiago, nearly all of it between May and August, and 1,500 mm or more at Valdivia, where no month is especially dry. The fjords and the island belt further south can pass 3,000 mm. Snow is common in the Chilean Andes in winter and near-continuous on the southern ice fields.

When to go

In the north, travel is possible all year, though summer is hot. Central Chile is best visited between November and March or April, when the winter rains are over. The south is best in the southern summer, with long days and snow on the volcanic slopes; March and April bring clearest weather.