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Copiapó has a cold desert climate.
Long, dry summers. Real winter cold. Almost no rain — here's what that means in plain terms.
What this climate feels like
The four things a regular visitor actually wants to know:
Highs near 79°F in February.
Lows near 45°F in July.
About 1 in of rain a year, plus 5 in of snow. Snow falls through the winter months.
Clear skies most days.
What "cold desert" means
Climate scientists sort every place on Earth into about 30 climate types, based on how hot, cold, wet and dry it is across the year. Copiapó's type — cold desert — sits in the broad family of dry climates — deserts and steppes.
Researchers write climate types as a short letter code. Here is what each letter means:
Cities with the same climate as Copiapó
A cold desert climate (BWk) — these recognizable cities share it. If you know one of them, you know roughly what to expect.
Has Copiapó's climate type changed?
Stable — Copiapó's climate has held the same type between the 1971–2000 and 1991–2020 normals. The label is steady; the climate beneath it is still warming.
What this climate means for you
Drought-tolerant natives only. Cold-hardy desert plants — sagebrush, juniper, hardy succulents — outperform exotics.
Spring and autumn are the comfortable shoulders. Winter is genuinely cold; summer is hot but dry.
Real winters and hot summers, but always dry. Heating in winter and AC in summer; humidity stays low year-round.
Where these numbers come from
The climate type and the month-by-month figures on this page are computed from Copiapó's measured 30-year climate normals (1991–2020) — the same official records behind Copiapó's main climate page, so the two always agree.
Long-range climate maps measure things slightly differently and can place a city in a neighbouring category. Where they differ, this page uses the measured station record as the climate today.
Methodology & sources
Temperature & precipitation — modelled for this location from ERA5-Land reanalysis, a ~9 km global grid, because no long-record weather station is close enough to use.