Bogota
Bogota Geography & Climate
Geography
Bogota sits on the Sabana de Bogota, a flat high plain in the eastern range of the Colombian Andes, at an altitude of about 2,640 metres.
A drained lake
The plateau is the floor of a Pleistocene lake that drained through the Tequendama gorge, leaving flat, fertile, poorly drained ground about 40 kilometres long. That flatness is why the city could sprawl as it has, and the underlying lake clays are soft, which limits building heights and amplifies earthquake shaking.
The eastern hills
The cerros orientales rise abruptly along the city’s eastern edge to over 3,100 metres at Monserrate and Guadalupe, a green wall visible from almost everywhere. They are a protected forest reserve, they fix the city’s eastern limit, and they are the reason Bogotanos navigate by them: the mountains are always east.
Altitude and the sun
At this height the air holds around three-quarters of the oxygen available at sea level, ultraviolet is intense, and the temperature swings sharply between sun and shade within the same hour.
Paramo
Above about 3,200 metres lies paramo, a high tropical moorland of frailejon plants found only in the northern Andes, which acts as a sponge and supplies almost all the city’s water from Chingaza and Sumapaz.
Why it grew here
A flat, watered, fertile plain at a height that is cool enough to be free of tropical disease, in a country whose lowlands were not, and defensible in the middle of a mountain range. The Spanish put the viceregal capital here for those reasons rather than for access, and the city has spent five centuries dealing with the consequence — that it is a long way from both coasts and from the Magdalena river that was the country’s highway.
Rivers
The Bogota river drains the plain and is severely polluted; the Tequendama falls downstream were once a scenic wonder.
Climate Patterns
Bogota’s climate is governed entirely by altitude rather than season, which produces something visitors find genuinely odd.
No seasons
Sitting near the equator at 2,640 metres, the city averages a daily high of 19°C and a low of 7°C in every single month. There is no summer and no winter. Day length varies by a few minutes across the year, and the sun rises around six and sets around six, all year.
Two wet seasons
What changes is rainfall, which follows the tropical convergence zone across the equator twice a year. April to May and October to November are wet, with heavy afternoon showers most days; December to March and July to August are drier and sunnier. Annual rainfall is around 800 to 1,000 millimetres.
Within a day
The real variation is hourly. Full sun at this altitude feels warm and burns quickly; ten minutes later, cloud and wind can make it feel close to freezing. Layers are not optional, and Bogotanos wear a jacket in all weathers.
Altitude effects
Around three-quarters of sea-level oxygen. Breathlessness on stairs is normal for the first day or two, and alcohol acts faster.
Dressing for it
Bogotanos wear layers and a jacket regardless of the forecast, because the forecast is not the useful unit here — the weather changes several times within an afternoon. A waterproof shell, something warm underneath and sunglasses covers every condition the city produces, in any month.
Hail and storms
Heavy hail is common in the wet months and occasionally severe enough to flood streets.