Yesterday saw a light drizzle around lunchtime in San José, a rarity for this time of year and, according to local lore, a foretelling sign of rains to come. As yesterday was Jan. 2, legend has it that February, the second month, will be rainy, too.

Here in Costa Rica, old wives claim the meteorological office needs no more scientific system to predict the weather than to note the climate on the first 12 days of January.

Slightly reminiscent of United States and Canada's Groundhog Day, in which a groundhog forecasts an early or late spring, in Costa Rica the soothsaying beasts are early-January drops. The 12 days are known as las pintas because they paint ( pintar, in Spanish) the weather for the forthcoming year, each day representing one month. If it rains tomorrow, the fourth day of January, for example, you can expect it to rain in April, the fourth month of the year.

For the dry season, it has been unusually precipitous, with hard rains over the Christmas holiday. This had no bearing on the pintas, but nevertheless caught Ticos off guard.

Residents in neighboring Nicaragua have also experienced an unusual dampening of their dry season.

Whether the legend will prove true this year, wait one month, and time will tell.

-Tico Times