Andagoya
Encyclopedia
Andagoya is a village in west-central Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 whose chief claim to fame is its spectacularly monotonous climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

, in terms of both temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...

 and precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)
In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...

.

The annual range of monthly mean temperatures - that is to say, the difference between the warmest and coldest months - at Andagoya is mere 0.7 °C (approximately 1.3 °F) as April, the warmest month, has an average temperature of 27.7 °C (81.9 °F) while November, the "coldest" month, averages 27.0 °C (80.6 °F); the average annual temperature is 27.4 °C (81.3 °F). This near complete uniformity of temperature is caused by the fact that Andagoya, at a latitude of 5° 5' North, lies extremely close to the thermal equator
Thermal equator
The thermal equator is a belt encircling the Earth, defined by the set of locations having the highest mean annual temperature at each longitude around the globe...

, which is situated a few degrees north of the astronomical equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

 because the Earth reaches perihelion (its closest position to the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

 in its orbit) in early January and is at aphelion (furthest away) in early July, causing places located precisely at the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

 to receive somewhat more insolation
Insolation
Insolation is a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given time. It is commonly expressed as average irradiance in watts per square meter or kilowatt-hours per square meter per day...

 (i.e., light and heat energy from the sun) in January than in July even though the height of the sun and the length of days would be the same at both times. At a few degrees north latitude, however, the perihelion/aphelion factor and the slightly higher sun and longer days experienced at the time of the summer solstice
Solstice
A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun's apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes...

 for the Northern Hemisphere cancel each other out, making the level of insolation
Insolation
Insolation is a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given time. It is commonly expressed as average irradiance in watts per square meter or kilowatt-hours per square meter per day...

 experienced there virtually identical throughout the year.

In addition to being monotonously hot, Andagoya is also monotonously wet: Every month of the year has at least 500 millimeters (19.7 inches) of average precipitation (December being the "driest" month), with the wettest month (May) averaging 650 millimeters (25.6 inches). Average annual precipitation is 6,817 millimeters (268.4 inches), and more rain falls at night than during the day, the reverse of what is true in most places that have tropical rain forest climates
Tropical rainforest climate
A tropical rainforest climate, also known as an equatorial climate, is a tropical climate usually found along the equator...

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Andagoya is named for Pascual de Andagoya
Pascual de Andagoya
Pascual de Andagoya was a Spanish Basque conquistador. He was born in the village of Andagoya, in the valley of Cuartango , in Spain....

 (1495-1548), a Spanish conquistador
Conquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...

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