Do Cuenca and Quito enjoy year-round spring-like weather?

Spring like...

That's a very vague term considering it can apply to late March in Vermont or May in the Carolinas.

The only consistent aspect that coordinates with Spring and Autumn in Ecuador is the length of daylight/night. It is approximately 12 hours of each every day all year round. That is the only point that makes it, in my estimation equivalent to Spring.

Still that is an important point to make.

There is a change of sun angle, more or less cloud cover, more or less rain, heat or cold dependent on coastal sea currents and that affects the country into the mountains. But every day...no lengthening days no shorter. No biological imperative to hibernate or store food, nor many of the other ingrained messages of anxiety that millennium has set for survival being triggered ...though cloudy days can  trigger some onset of underlying issues.

So Spring with daffodils and lilacs? No.

But a land where everyday is equal length? For some affected by SAD their whole life, Ecuador can be a serious game changer.

As a kid in Quito I always enjoyed the "spring-like" weather that allowed the wearing of a jacket at night and the lighting of a fire.  When the sun was out during the day with white puffy cumulus clouds overhead it was pleasant and never hot.  When we camped out on las faldas de la montaña Pichincha a few hundred meters higher than the city it was downright cold at night.

But the whole concept of four seasons and extended daylight in the summer, and the reverse in the winter, is often just not understood by those who were born and live on or near the equator.  At best they are used to a wet season and a somewhat drier season, depending on exactly where they are, elevation and location.  So I would not describe Quito at least as "spring-like",  especially because as pointed out, "spring" can mean almost anything, at least in the higher latitudes of the Northern hemisphere...I always thought Quito was more like the cool of a good day in the fall, that one often experienced before the winter came in earnest.

I would describe Quito as being a combination of spring and fall each day, but some days it's more spring like from morning until evening and other days it's tilted towards fall from day to night. July is also summer like from 11:00-2:00 pm, because as another member stated – sun angle and cloud cover.  So it's generally a combination of Spring and Fall but also includes a rainy and non-rainy season.

Right now as in July it's spring early mornings, summer late mornings and early afternoon, spring again in mid and late afternoons, and fall in the evening. So in a day
I can easily go from a t-shirt to a light sweater to a jacket in the evening.

This past January until May it was also spring and fall but tilted more towards fall and without any semblance of summer. By late afternoon it would start to get chilly and by 6:30-7:00 pm quit cold and normal to wear a jacket with a light raincoat over it.

And of course there are micro-climates, and a perfect example is kite flying. Can one fly a kite at parque Ejido? Probably but it'll be a poor experience because of weak winds, but do so at parque Carolina where the winds tend to gust and you'll have a great time.

All of the above information does not take into account Quito's valley which includes Cumbayá and Tumbaco and which experience more Spring like weather than North/Centro Quito.

Personally, I love the weather/climate although this past rainy season has taught me several lessons. Don't take the sun for granted during that time of year, use heating more, use a dehumidifier (and by the way I rarely use now because it's hasn't rained in about 3 weeks). But I have a dehumidifier and plan on getting another bigger one, so mother nature, bring it next rainy season!

If one reads online information pertaining to weather/climate it basically states that June-August is "winter." To the point that I had to look up the definition for winter to see if I was missing something.

How they classify June-August as winter for Quito is beyond me. June-August is summer if by definition winter = colder, and summer = hotter. I am of this moment shirtless, and sock-less with my bare toes enjoying the soothing feeling of my shaggy rug. The point here is from January-May this would be impossible because the weather is much colder.

Then again this is only my second "winter", and perhaps mother nature is truly out of sync.

Finally, on August 8, it rained, as in rained a good amount and the skies remained overcast. It's not by chance either that we had this downpour, we had a few teasing sprinkles the past month, but today temperatures dropped. It's beautiful witnessing this transition and really everything about Quito is beautiful in this regard. It's a city where the moon rises at eye level, and it's amazing when it's a full moon as it alights parts of parque metropolitano from my window.

Yes the season is changing,  It's beautiful.

Ok to follow up on my last post the weather has definitely changed for good on August 17 and now we are in many cloudy days with more rain. So from the end of June until middle of August we had a proper summer season which was hot and barely any rain. And now the weather is cloudy with a good amount of rain here and there.

Clearly there are two seasons so far, a short summer and now a spring which I anticipate will develop into a full rainy season. So ultimately I believe there are 3 seasons in Quito, a short summer, a spring/fall with moderate rainfall, and spring/fall with some serious rain.

Hope that Nards Barley can give us some input from Cuenca so it can be compared to the capital.

For weather enthusiast one headline today in el comecrio read:

El cambio en el clima en Quito marca el inicio de la transición a la época lluviosa

Translation: Quito's rainy season has arrived.

I hope so because 1.) I'm tired of wearing my sunglasses, and 2.) I hate it when I forget them because I squint so much, and which is probably causing wrinkles around my eyes. 

Yes 4 months of almost 100% sunny weather is enough. Especially from a UV perspective it's not healthy at all.