Weather in La Fortuna, Costa Rica
The short version: it is warm every day of the year, and it rains every month of the year. La Fortuna is rainforest — the rain is the reason everything here is green, and it is far less disruptive than most visitors expect.
What is the weather actually like?
La Fortuna sits at the base of Arenal Volcano at modest elevation, which gives it a warm, humid, remarkably stable climate. Daytime temperatures generally sit somewhere between the mid-70s and the mid-80s Fahrenheit, and they barely move across the year. There is no cold season, and no month where you need more than a light layer for the evening.
What changes is not the temperature. It is how much rain falls, and Costa Rica does not have four seasons — it has a drier one and a wetter one.
Dry season and green season
| Roughly | What to expect |
|---|---|
| December – April Dry season |
The driest and sunniest stretch, and the busiest. Best odds of clear volcano views. Higher prices, more people at the waterfall and the springs. |
| May – November Green season |
More rain, usually in the afternoon. Everything is intensely green, the waterfalls run hard, there are fewer tourists, and rates soften. |
Even that is a generalisation. September and October are typically the wettest months here, and there is often a drier spell somewhere around late June and July that locals call the little summer. But no month is a write-off.
Does it rain all day?
Usually not, and this is the single most useful thing to know. The typical La Fortuna day is a clear or partly clear morning followed by cloud building through the afternoon and rain arriving somewhere from mid-afternoon onward. It often falls hard and then stops.
The practical consequence: schedule outdoor plans for the morning. The waterfall, the volcano hike, the hanging bridges and zip lines all work better before noon. Afternoons are for hot springs — which are better in the rain anyway — and for being somewhere comfortable.
When can you actually see the volcano?
Arenal generates its own weather. Warm, wet air rises up its flanks, cools, and forms cloud that sits on the summit, which means the peak is hidden a good deal of the time in any season. Early morning gives the best chance of a clear cone.
That is a real argument for sleeping near the volcano rather than driving over for the day. If you are already here at 6am, you get several attempts across a week. If you drive in from San José for an afternoon, you get one, and the odds are against you.
What rain means for a group
This is where most La Fortuna advice stops being useful, because it is written for couples. If you are travelling with fifteen or twenty people, the question is not whether it will rain. It is where everyone goes when it does.
A rained-out afternoon in two hotel rooms is miserable. A rained-out afternoon in a 6,000 square foot house with your whole group in it is just an afternoon. The Majestic Lodge has 10 bedrooms across four levels, sitting areas on the top floor, a games table, and a massage room — so when the sky opens, the group has somewhere to be together instead of scattered.
Two more things that make rain a non-event here. The pickleball courts we use are covered, so play is not cancelled by an afternoon shower the way it is on every outdoor court in the region. And the hot springs are, if anything, better in the rain — sitting in thermal water while it comes down is one of the genuinely good experiences of this place.
So when should you come?
If clear volcano views and dry days matter most, come between December and April and accept the crowds and the prices. If you would rather have the place to yourselves, with everything green and the waterfalls at full volume, come in the green season and plan your outdoor mornings. For a large group watching a budget, green season is materially cheaper and the trade-off is a few wet afternoons.
There is no bad month. There is only a month you have not planned around.