UV Index 🇩🇴Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles, spanning roughly 17.6° to 19.9° north latitude in the tropical Caribbean. Its interior is dominated by the Cordillera Central, which rises to Pico Duarte at 3,098 m — the highest peak in the entire Caribbean. At these low latitudes the midday sun passes nearly overhead for much of the year, so solar elevation angles stay high and direct-beam ultraviolet radiation is intense throughout the country.

What distinguishes the Dominican Republic is the combination of full tropical-latitude UV intensity with the Caribbean's highest mountain: Pico Duarte and the Cordillera Central add a pronounced altitude effect, since UV irradiance increases with elevation as the overhead atmosphere thins. The national meteorological service ONAMET issues daily UV index forecasts. Trade-wind cloud cover on the windward Atlantic north coast and rain-shadow aridity in the southwestern Enriquillo basin produce markedly different UV regimes between the humid north and the arid leeward southwest.

The Dominican Republic sits at #80 of 191 in the WHO's global ambient-UV ranking with about 4,880 J/m² of average daily UV, around the 58th percentile worldwide.