Seasons

We are currently at the very beginning of the rainy season, and you can see in the pictures below how much greener things have become in just the past few weeks:

April 17th

May 5th

The seasons in this part of Honduras are a bit different than what we experienced when we lived on Guanaja. Here's a summary, as best I can figure it out:

The months of January through April are basically the dry season. January is quite cold (down into the 40's brrrrrr), and there are heavy fogs most mornings. Sometime in February the temperature starts to rise, culminating in a very hot spell - in the low 90's - just around Easter. By mid-April or so, everything is quite hot and brown and dry around here. Once the rains start around the first of May, though, green leaves burst out everywhere, and (comparing to the seasons I knew in Maryland) it's very much as if we had skipped from a very hot autumn to a warm, wet spring.

I'd not have expected this, before living here, but the rainy season is by far my favorite season. The farmers start planting their crops as the rains start, and the world is very green and fresh. Although there is some rain most every day, it rarely rains all day - it's rarely even cloudy all day. Generally the days are sunny, with an afternoon storm front which passes through dumping large amounts of rain in a violent hurry, then the sun comes back out again.

There are rains from May through about October, but this varies. Last year was an especially dry year in Honduras. October and November can be dry, but during these months Honduras often experiences "cold fronts," which sound innocuous but are actually considered quite serious weather events here. The cold fronts bring low temperatures, and generally also bring entire days of cloudy skies and rain.

December tends to be a time when temperatures drop steadily, as we head into the chilly beginning of the dry season and start the cycle over again.