Surely one of THE biggest misconceptions about the city of Loja, Ecuador is that it has mild spring-like weather that stays the same all year long. Ecuadorians who are from this area tell me the climate has changed considerably, so even the seasons as they knew them no longer apply. However, although it has changed from what it used to be, in recent years there is a very definite pattern of seasons in Loja. (Note: There was the very strong El Niño weather phenomenon that started significantly impacting Loja's weather in December, 2015, and lasted through 2016.
Click here to learn more about about the El Niño that formed in 2015 or read on to see how it affected the city of Loja.)
I didn't think much about the importance of seasons to me before moving to Ecuador, but I have to say that experiencing the change of seasons in a consistent way year after year does feel right and comfortable to me now.
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| photo courtesy of QueHayEnLoja |
Possibly other parts of Ecuador don't have these predictable seasons. I didn't get any sense of this cycle during the year I lived in Cuenca other than the fact that the night time temperatures in July and August were even colder than the other months. In other parts of the province of Loja, south and west of the city, it seems to be warm to hot all year long. In Vilcabamba, a town of 5000 with a large expat community 45 minutes south of the city of Loja, they have a dry season and a wet season but their temperatures don't usually change that much. In Quito, it is often warm and sunny, and doesn't seem to be related to what month it is. But perhaps our readers living in other parts of this diverse country can comment on whether they have seasons and what they look like where they are.
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| fairgrounds, city of Loja |
The city of Loja seems to have a 4-season cycle which repeats each year (except during a strong El Niño weather pattern year, like the one that started in December 2015 and lasted through 2016 (more on this below).
Every month of the year gets at least a little bit of rain almost every day, and most days have at least a little bit of sunshine.
July-August has the coldest night time temperatures and can also be somewhat windy both during the night and the day...
The coldest it gets in the Loja winter is low 40's Fahrenheit (5-7 Celsius). But keep in mind that most homes and buildings are made with no insulation and no built-in heat. So it can also be in the 40's (F) (6-8 C) INSIDE the house. That is something that most North Americans are not used to. Usually these winter months don't have a tremendous amount of rain, although July 2015 was pretty wet and cold.
September-October are usually spring time in Loja and very beautiful. For many, these two months offer as close to perfect weather as you can find. Day time highs 60-75 F (16-24 C), night time lows 48-52 F (9-11 C), less rain than the previous 8 months (although we do still get enough rain even in spring to cause minor flooding some years), fewer hours of overcast skies, and just generally wonderful.
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| The city of Loja has many miles of rivers. |
Most years, November-December-(part of) January are summer in Loja. This is usually the only time of year when the temperatures climb above 80 F (27 C), but even that only happens a few times between November 1st and December 31st (except in a strong El Niño year). On that handful of days it feels like beach weather, such that if Loja had an island culture (it doesn't) everyone would be out in bathing suits and flip flops. The rest of the summer, though, is still quite warm and beautiful. Sometimes we get little rain showers during which the sun is shining brightly (we used to call these "sun showers" when I was a kid) and it feels so nice to have the little raindrops dancing on your skin along with the sun. (I first noticed this in December of 2011, but it's happened every year since then.) Usually at some point in the summer we get 2 or even 3 days in a row with no rain at all, which always feels a bit unnerving since we are used to daily rains. But, so far, the rains always return after 3 days at most.
[Note: With the very strong El Niño, December of 2015 was much wetter and cooler than recent Decembers and then January 2016 arrived and we got this amazing heatwave with daily highs in the mid 80's F (29-31 C) and only tiny amounts of rain most days. As we moved through 2016 we continued to see higher than normal temperatures and less rain than usual although we still got rain almost every day until October when we got stretches of 3-4 days in a row with no rainfall.]
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| Much of the residential areas are built up the sides of mountains. |
Most years, February-March-April are the early fall months. Every year Ecuadorians complain about how cold it is when we move into the autumn weather (except for the strong El Niño year of 2016 which was noticeably warmer than recent past years). It isn't really that cold, but it FEELS cold because it follows right on the heels of our gorgeous summer. These three months usually see a lot of rainfall and with the rain comes colder temperatures. February is often very overcast and rainy with only small pockets of direct sun on some days. Fortunately we get breaks in this pattern every so often with 2 or 3 days in a row of mostly sunny weather. In February of 2013 we had really heavy rains and pipes burst all over the city, spewing muddy water all over the streets which then dried and caused little dust storms for weeks afterwards.
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| photo courtesy of QueHayEnLoja |
March-April usually see a larger portion of sun time than the previous month and are warmer. We can get heavy rains during this period, but there are fewer hours of overcast skies. Toward the end of March of 2015, we had a strange weather event. We had four days in a row of much bluer than normal skies and each of those nights we had torrential rains which washed out roads and bridges, carried trees down the mountainsides, and generally caused havoc. Six months later the city was still rebuilding.
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| Plaza de San Sebastián, downtown Loja |
May-June are late fall and generally quite nice, not as rainy or overcast, BUT with periods of cold weather (no doubt to remind us that winter is coming). I used to think that the coldest temperatures were in July and August, but year after year we have these cold snaps in May (except in a strong El Niño year) which have colder DAY time temperatures than the winter months. We've had a few days that stayed in the 40's F (7-9 C) with wind and rain. Definitely NOT beach weather!! But after the cold snap it gets beautiful again, often quite sunny and warm. I experienced my first May cold snap in 2012. My Ecuadorian friends said "How can it be this cold in Loja? This is ridiculous!!" But now it seems to happen every year, though perhaps not as bad as the 2012 event.
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| sunny day in Loja, northeast of downtown |
And then, here we are, back to where we started... A few other notes... if you are looking for a sunny climate in Ecuador's mountains above 6000 feet elevation, you will have better luck in northern Ecuador. You can see just from driving up the Andes mountains from south to north that it gets drier as you head north. Every time I've gone from southern Ecuador to northern Ecuador, it's been sunnier at the destination. It's finally time to admit it: the northern mountains of Ecuador are sunnier than the southern mountains. And there are wonderful places to visit and live in the northern mountains: Quito, if you like big cities, Ibarra and Otavalo if you prefer smaller cities, Cotacachi if you want to visit or live near a large expat community, or the many areas around these places in the countryside if you want more rural living.
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| Downtown Loja |
We do get some direct sun almost every day in Loja, but there are a lot more hours of overcast skies than sunny skies in any 12-month cycle. Sometimes we only get morning sun, other days only afternoon sun. Then there are those luscious 12 hours of sun days, but also some 12 minutes of sun days...
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| Sometimes the rainbows come at the same time as the sunset in the city of Loja |
The idea that the city of Loja has perfect spring-like weather all year long, which is promoted by organizations that profit by giving "retirement advice" to North American retirees, is very misleading when you consider what most people's ideas of perfect weather are. But, the weather in Loja gives us many gifts. The perpetual rains keep the city of Loja green all year round, with wild flowers of many colors blooming, gorgeous flowing rivers, amazing rainbows and sunsets. So, we put up with the weather in exchange for all this natural beauty. Some of us have even stopped complaining about it.
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| Sunset in the city of Loja |
Click here to see more Misconceptions about Loja, Ecuador.
Click here to visit the All About Loja page, including pictures.
