January 4, 2020

No.129

December 2019
(Back Issues Here)

Happy New Year.  December 2019 brought 1.68 inches of rain to the Palmira Arriba Station. The reports from around the District of Boquete for December are varied ranging from a low of 1.47 inches to a high of 15 inches.

Rainfall for December 2019
Area	Contributors	December	Total 2019
El Santuario	Terry Zach	2.76	66.20
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	2.17	112.18
Jaramillo Abajo	Don Berkowitz	1.68	137.07
Jaramillo Abajo	Bobi McGann	2.03	123.91
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	9.89	n/a
El Salto Arriba	Rodrigo Marciacq	1.92	80.14
Valle Escondido	Doug Remsen	2.26	n/a
Brisas  Boquetenas	Austin Perry	1.40	147.30
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturtz	1.88	n/a
Los Molinos	Sela Burkholder	1.61	148.50
Los Molinos	Fred Donelson	1.47	129.74
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	1.53	98.36
Lucero (Cielo Paraiso)	Michael Mullin	2.02	158.21
Cerro Verde	Charlotte Lintz	1.89	75.06
Boquete Country Club	Paul Arrandale	1.06	115.50
Palmira Abajo	Betty Gray	2.62	98.54
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	1.63	97.17
n/a = not currently available but will be posted when available

The monthly rainfall at the Palmira Arriba station was 1.63 inches which is within one standard deviation below the mean for measured December rains.  So this is low but not extremely low.  We had rain on 9 different days of the month and no rain on 22 days.

Compared to the data for 13+ previous years at our station, this month's rainfall is .63 standard deviations below the mean/average.  The measured mean for December is 3.12 inches with a standard deviation of 2.37 inches.  The range is between 0.29 (2018) and 7.01 (2017) inches. You can check out the data for yourself over the past years.  You can also look at the tables in the Climate Section to see what rains we have had in the month of December over 13 years.

 The current total for the year by the end of December was 97.17 inches.  Is this lower than normal.  Yes, it is lower than normal.  How much lower?  Over the course of 12 years of data, the mean annual rainfall has been 137.21 inches with a range between 89.03 (2014) and 222.68 (2008) inches.  The standard deviation is 44.35 inches.  This year's rainfall is not quite a standard deviation below the mean with a .9 standard deviation below the mean. 

Note the considerable variation of rainfall throughout the District of Boquete.  The lowest recorded was in Brisas with a 1.40 inches and the highest was in Palo Alto with a reported 15 inches. That is a large difference.  I noticed that most of the moisture this month came in from the North in the form of mist (Bajareque).  We had very little rain storms coming in from the south during the month.  This explains why the Palo Alto area received a lot more moisture than other areas.  However, at a higher elevation, Steve Sarner reports in Jaramillo Arriba that they had the lowest rainfall ever for the month of December and for the year since he has been recording data for about 15 years.

I am concerned that this lower rainfall may have an adverse effect upon coffee growth and production.  According to the Encyclopedia Britanica Coffee can grow and produce with 60 to 90 inches of rain per year along with a dry season period of 2 to 3 months and with temperatures between 72 and 83 degress F. Let's hope the decreased annual rainfall doesn't persist or even get worse.  Also hope that the temperatures don't increase significantly.  Interestingly, we are noticing a lower production of coffee harvest this year on our coffee farm in Palmira (4200 feet elevation).  However, our experience is that coffee production tends to fluctuate from year to year so it is difficult to say whether or not this year's low production is related to some sort of trend in the climate or just a normal year to year variation.

As you know, Climate Change is a Hot Topic (pun intended)!  Most credible scientists think that the data indicates that climate change is occuring and is manifested in a variety places and ways throughout the world.  Record temperatures and extreme events are on the rise.  There is some debate about the exact causes of the changes but little debate about the fact that change is happening. Regardless, the changes are concerning and should get our attention.  We need to take action as much as possible. 

How is this change affecting our local area?  Without long standing records of the local weather it is difficult to know.  Over the course of living here nearly 15 years and collecting data for 13 years it seems that there is a trend toward less annual rainfall and a small increase in temperatures, but the data is too limited to know for certain or to make an serious predictions. 

A topic that has interested me for some time is that topic of how climate change will affect the tropics?  We know that the ENSCO Cycle affects our precipitation and temperatures (especially ocean temperatures) but this is a reoccurring clycle and somewhat separate from the topic of global climate change.  Here is a link to a general article on the subject of climate change and the tropics.  If you know of any other information on the subject of how climate change might affect our local weather/climate, please share it. I will pass it on to others.

The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "ENSO-neutral conditions are present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are near-to-above average across the Pacific Ocean. The pattern of anomalous convection is generally consistent with ENSO-neutral. ENSO-neutral is favored during the Northern Hemisphere winter 2019-20 (70% chance), continuing through spring 2020 (~65% chance)."  Here is a link to an excellent source for understanding El Niño.  Give it a read and you will learn a lot about this important weather phenomenon.

The IRI (International Research Institute for Climate and Society) (select South America from the Region menu) is reporting the following precipitation predictions for the months of January-February-March  2020 issued December 2019. Note the predictions of below normal precipitation for Panama (yellow/brown).

ETESA's, hydrology and meteorology section is predicting that Chiriqui will generally have normal levels of precipitation in January of 2020. You can read their report and check out the details in the "documents" section at this link.   

Have a Happy New Year and brave the winds.  Dry skies and NE winds will be around for the next 2+ months.  When we got up this morning the winds were averaging 19+ mph.  Our electric power went off at 9:00 and didn't come back for over 9 hours.  Not all is perfrect in Paradise, but near perfect and whatever is going on with the weather right now won't be forever.  Umbrellas are resting and generator is working hard.

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com