If you spent the mid-year break at the beach, today is the day most people head home — and two things will shape your afternoon drive. Route 27 turns all its lanes toward San José for four hours, and the weather turns wet and windy from the middle of the day. Plan around both and you’ll skip the worst of it.
Between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., every lane on Route 27 runs one way, toward the capital. The highway does this on the busiest return days to clear the flood of cars coming off the coast at once, so traffic keeps moving instead of stacking up at the tolls. Crews start closing and setting up the road at 1 p.m., and normal two-way traffic is back by 7 p.m.
The part to watch is speed and direction. While the lanes are flipped, the limit drops to 60 km/h (37 mph), and traffic officers will be checking — the lower speed is what keeps a road full of redirected lanes safe. And if you need to go the other way, toward Caldera or the coast, you can’t use Route 27 at all during those hours. Take an alternate instead: Route 3 through Atenas, Aguacate and Orotina; Route 1 over Cambronero; or Route 239 through Ciudad Colón, Puriscal, San Pablo, Turrubares and Orotina.
The weather gives you a reason to leave earlier rather than later. Rain and wind both build through the afternoon and into the night — exactly when the road will be busiest.
Mornings are the calmer window. Expect scattered showers over the Caribbean and the Northern Zone and some drizzle across the eastern and northern edges of the Central Valley, but nothing that should slow a drive. By afternoon, rain picks up over the Central and South Pacific — the coast most people are driving home from — and spreads to Limón and its lowlands by evening.
Wind is the part to respect. Gusts will reach 40 to 65 km/h (25 to 40 mph) in the lowlands and 70 to 95 km/h (43 to 59 mph) in the mountains, so the climb over the hills between the coast and the Central Valley will be blustery. Ease off on exposed stretches, leave more room behind the car ahead on wet pavement, and watch for standing water where the afternoon downpours pool.
In San José, look for 19 to 24 °C (66 to 76 °F) with wind from early morning. Out on the Nicoya Peninsula, Nicoya swings from about 22 to nearly 36 °C (72 to 96 °F). You can check conditions for your own route on our regional weather forecast before you set off.
The wet stretch doesn’t end today. Forecasters expect next week to open with another round of Caribbean rain as a new tropical wave moves through, so if your drive slips to Monday, the same advice holds.
In short: if you can, be on the road before the lanes flip at 2 p.m. and before the afternoon rain sets in. If you’re leaving later, hold to 60 km/h on Route 27, give yourself extra time, and take it slow through the wind and water on the way up.
