Annual Rainfall Patterns for S. America?
 

Does anyone know off the top of their head, or better yet know of a website that has detailed weather information for S.America?

I'm planning a year long trip through the entire continent and I, of course, want to follow the dry season around.

Any advice would be great!

Hi
Might I suggest you visit google.com (or similar search engine) and type in 'Annual Rainfall Patterns for S. America'.
ChrisB

Tried it. You get stuff like this:

http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbook...e/80877E09.htm

and

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen...THAMERICA.html

Funny! :-)
I found the lonely planet website to be a great resource for general info like that. It's at www.lonelyplanet.com. Then click on "world guide", the country of your choice, then "when to go". This will give you a good idea of rough weather patterns within the country and the ideal time to be in certain places. From my research, I've found that generally, the best time to be in the southern cone is the summer (obiously), which is Dec-March, which corresponds to the rainiest time in the Andes (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, etc). The ideal time to be in the Andes is apparently the austral winter, so Jun-Sept, when it is dry, cool and pleasant for riding, hiking, trekking, climbing, etc., with April, May, October and November being tranistion periods. (Of course these might be good times to visit cause there won't be tourist hordes in some places). In Amazonia it's apparently wet, hot, humid and miserable from Dec-March, and many of the unsealed roads are supposedly impassable. North of the equator patterns are inverse, and the dry season in Venezuela, and Central America would start around December. Not too sure about eastern Brazil. These general trends may not be the level of detail you were looking for, but I think the LP website will give you some more specific info.
good luck,
Arne

Try www.weather.com and plug in city(world wide) and it will give you current temps etc and look under "history" or "record"S or something like that and it will give you historcial ave temps and rainfall by month.