Sri Lanka Lies between 6 - 10 of North Latitude and Between 80 - 82 of East Longitude. It has a Maximum Length of 432 km (Devundara to Point Peduru) and Maximum Breadth 224 km (Colombo - Sangamankanda) . The Land Area is 65,525 Sq. km. The Area Excluding the Inland Water 62,336 Sq. km. The hills appear in the center and the south of Center. Sri Lanka is generally a warm country.
Sri Lanka has no marked seasons. A special feature is that the hot and humid lowlands and the salubrious hill country are separated by a few hours motoring.
Average mean temperature along the coast is 26.7 C (80 F) and 19.7 C (66.50 F) in the hill country. In Colombo, the commercial capital, situated on the west coast, the temperature varies from 26.4 C (79.5 F) to 27.8 C (82.12 F). Relative Humidity varies from 70% during the day to 90% at night. In the lowlands the climate is typically tropical with an average temperature of 27ºC in Colombo. In the higher elevations it can be quite cool with temperatures going down to 16ºC at an altitude of nearly 2,000 meters. Bright, sunny warm days are the rule and are common even during the height of the monsoon - climatically Sri Lanka has no off season. The south west monsoon brings rain mainly from May to July to the western, southern and central regions of the island, while the north-east monsoon rains occur in the northern and eastern regions in December and January.
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· South West Monsoon- May to August
· North East Monsoon- November to February
Agriculture in the north and east suffers badly during the South-west Monsoon because the moisture bearing winds dry out as they descend over the Central Highlands, producing hot, during and often very strong winds. Thus June, July and August are almost totally rainless throughout the Dry Zone. For much of the time a strong, hot wind, called yalhulanga by the Sinhalese peasantry and kachchan by the Tamils, desiccates the land.
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