One of the very best things about living in Montevideo is the weather! In fact, the weather here is one of the things that is NOT boring, and does not call to mind images of “Iowa with a beach”.
In Florida, during the last year I lived there, I ran the air conditioner for 360 days, the other 5 I ran the heater. When I lived in Washington, DC, the winter seemed endless. For those of you farther north, by about February it must seem like frozen eternity. In many ways Costa Rica was the worst; it was warm and dry for six months, and then rained for six months—to the extent that dreams of building an ark to escape the deluge were almost palpable.
Uruguay is not like that! Here the weather seems to move in gentle cycles, none of which seem to be longer than a week, and most of which seem to be for three or four days. For example, during the month of July last winter, the daily high temperature ranged from 62°F/16°C up to 77°F/25°C. The daily low temperature bottomed out at 35°F/1.5°C up to 48°F/8°C. Thus far this month, which is the middle of high summer, our daily high temperatures have been from 73°F/22°C to a sizzling 96°F/35°C, while our lows have reached all the way down to a “polar bear” comfortable 50°F/10°C and ranged upwards to 62°F/60°C.
But the really nice thing is that no temperature range has dominated for more than four or five days; after a few days of the infernal heat, we would have a blessed cool reprieve. (I hope I have kept my bias against hot weather sufficiently hidden.)
The wind is similarly changeable, except they cycle over a period of hours instead of days. Our offices are just one block from the shore across an open park. From my desk I have an unobstructed view all the way out to the ship channel. During the course of almost any day the waters of the Rio de la Plata change from a mirror-like calmness to a pattern of ripples, which in turn can change to whitecaps, which some days grow into breakers–which on rare occasions even becomes surf-able (or so I’ve been told).
Taken together, this makes Montevideo’s climate a very nice one in which to live–changeable enough to not get boring, but with changes sufficiently moderate to not be alarming. In many ways the climate is a good mirror of its people and its culture…
As I contemplate heading out to the parking lot to snowblow away the latest offerings from the snow gods, I read with envy your descriptions of weather in Montevideo. Gundy and I look forward to enjoying the Uruguayan weather. Enough of this white stuff!! See you again eventually, David.
Left by syd on January 17th, 2007
I agree. The one thing that makes days like today bearable here in MVD (it was up in the mid 90’s) is knowing that in a day or two the high will be just above 70… In fact, this whole summer apart from today I can only remember one other day that was hot enough to make me seriously pine for air conditioning. You just can’t beat that.
Left by marcus on February 4th, 2007