Month
Mean temperature
Number of rainy days
Rainfall

[Degree]F

INCHES

January 63.5 1 0.06

February 62.1 2 0.57

March 66.9 3 1.46

April 70.5 1 0.32

May 68.3 16 4.02

June 67.2 26 12.55

July 66.5 26 14.43

August 64.6 31 37.03

September 67.0 23 11.90

October 67.0 13 4.95

November 68.2 13 2.52

December 66.0 16 5.47

It is seen that April is the hottest month of the year and February is the coldest.  The absolute lowest temperature recorded is 42.10[degree] Fahrenheit, noted February 18, 1902.  Of course the temperature varies considerably —­ a fact due largely to altitude and prevailing winds.  The height of the rainy season is in August, during which it rains every day, with an average precipitation of 37.03 inches.  Baguio is known as much rainier than many other places in the Cordillera Central, yet it must be taken as more or less typical of the entire mountain area of northern Luzon, throughout which the rainy season is very uniform.  Usually the days of the rainy season are beautiful and clear during the forenoon, but all-day rains are not rare, and each season has two or three storms of pelting, driving rain which continues without a break for four or five days.

Igorot peoples

In several languages of northern Luzon the word “Ig-o-rot’” means “mountain people.”  Dr. Pardo de Tavera says the word “Igorrote” is composed of the root word “golot,” meaning, in Tagalog, “mountain chain,” and the prefix “i,” meaning “dweller in” or “people of.”  Morga in 1609 used the word as “Igolot;” early Spaniards also used the word frequently as “Ygolotes” —­ and to-day some groups of the Igorot, as the Bontoc group, do not pronounce the “r” sound, which common usage now puts in the word.  The Spaniards applied the term to the wild peoples of present Benguet and Lepanto Provinces, now a short-haired, peaceful people.  In after years its common application spread eastward to the natives of the comandancia of Quiangan, in the present Province of Nueva Vizcaya, and northward to those of Bontoc.

The word “Ig-o-rot’” is now adopted tentatively as the name of the extensive primitive Malayan people of northern Luzon, because it is applied to a very large number of the mountain people by themselves and also has a recognized usage in ethnologic and other writings.  Its form as “Ig-o-rot’” is adopted for both singular and plural, because it is both natural and phonetic, and, because, so far as it is possible to do so, it is thought wise to retain the simple native forms of such words as it seems necessary or best to incorporate in our language, especially in scientific language.

The sixteenth degree of north latitude cuts across Luzon probably as far south as any people of the Igorot group are now located.  It is believed they occupy all the mountain country northward in the island except the territory of the Ibilao in the southeastern part of the area and some of the most inaccessible mountains in eastern Luzon, which are occupied by Negritos.