April 3, 2022

No.156

March 2022
(Back Issues Here)

We had very little precipitation (almost none) in March.  I think it was very dry.  We had 0.44 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station.  The reports from around the District of Boquete for March vary from lows of 0.0 rain to highs of 5.51 inches. Here is the data:

Rainfall for March 2022
Area	Contributors	March 2022	Total 2022
El Salto Arriba	Beth Corwin	0.62	0.66
El Santuario	Robert Boyd	3.46	6.12
El Santuario	Rodrigo Marciacq	3.58	7.23
Barriade Las Flores	Bill Brick	2.04	4.36
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	2.39	5.33
Jaramillo Arriba	Mark Heyer	2.87	5.33
Jaramillo Central	Dave Nichols	2.01	3.00
Jaramillo Abajo	Don Berkowitz	0.60	0.85
Jaramillo Abajo	John McGann	0.82	1.34
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	5.51	13.10
Valle Escondido	Doug Remsen	0.00	0.38
Brisas  Boquetenas	Austin Perry	0.40	0.43
Brisas  Boquetenas	Dennis DeCorte	0.38	1.09
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturtz	0.64	1.30
Los Molinos	Sela Burkholder	0.81	2.26
El Encanto (Volcancito)	Brian Baldwin	0.95	1.31
Cerro Verde (Volcancito)	Charlotte Lintz	n/a	0.83
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	0.95	1.10
Caldera	Chris Mccall	0.64	1.13
Lucero	Michael Mullin	1.90	1.90
Boquete Country Club	Paul Arrandale	0.47	0.57
Palmira Abajo	Betty Gray	0.00	0.00
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	0.44	0.57
El Banco	Laura Daniels	2.78	4.45

Many reports indicate either no or little rain for the month of March 2022.  However, some areas had several inches.

The highest rainfall was reported by Nancy Pettersen at Palo Alto with 5.51 inches.  Several others at the north end of the District of Boquete reported 2 to 3 inches of precipitation.  All of these areas are the ones that get the main moisture hit from the Bajareque coming over the mountains from the Caribbean side of the mountain range.

At the Palmira Arriba Station we recorded only 0.44 inches of rain for March. It was generally quite dry.  Several days after a small amount of rain on March 4, the coffee trees started to blossom. It didn't take much rain to trigger lots of blossoms. Each of those blossoms are a potential coffee cherry. There will be more after the heavier rains begin.

 

Again the question is whether or not the month of March was unusually dry?  Let's look at the numbers. 

The following chart shows the statistics for the month of March from the years 2007 thru 2022 at the Palmira Arriba Station.  The mean rainfall for the month of March is 1.72 inches with a standard deviation of 2.16 inches and a large range from 0.00 to 7.09 inches.  The rain for March 2022 is less than one standard deviation below the mean (0.59 standard deviations below the mean). March is generally a drier month but last month it was drier than average.

Palmira Arriba Station Rainfall March over 16 Years

You can also look at the tables in the Climate Section to see what rains we have had in various months over the course of the last 15 years as well as check other weather variables.

In last months report, I said at the end of March, I would calculate the total rainfall from the Palmira Arriba Station for the months of December, January, February and March combined and compare the same span of months over the 16 years of data collection.  I had a hunch that we were having a drier dry season but wanted to have data to confirm it rather than just a hunch. 

I now have the data and made the calculations.  I compared the total rainfall from December through March of each dry season and I call this the DSI - Dry Season Index:

The highest DSI was in 2010 with 16.03 inches of rain.  The lowest was in 2019 with only 0.45 inches of rain.  The second lowest was this year 2022 with 0.99 inches of rain.  This year has a low DSI. 

The graph indicates a trend downward toward less rain over the years with some notable variation. A trendline on the graph below shows a downward trend, but as I have previously said, you need 30+ years of data collection to be confident of the trendline in statistics.  We need more data to be sure. 

The trend toward less rain during the dry season is consistent with the reports of climate change with less precipitation in many parts of the world.

Normally April starts a transition into the rainy season with May delivering lots of rain and it is often one of our rainiest months.  We have to wait and see what happens this year.  We certainly need some more rain here in Palmira to green the grass, stimulate the coffee growth, facilitate other agriculture and maintain the rain forest.

It is with sadness that we lost one of our dedicated rain data collectors last month on March 4 with the sudden death of Barbara (Bobi) McGann in Jaramillo Abajo.  Bobi faithfully collected and reported their rain data since late 2017.  Her devoted husband John McGann plans to continue the reports. We appreciate John continuing with us.

Michael Mullin from Lucero is leaving Boquete for other adventures and sent his last report this month.  Michael has reported his rain data sine late 2012. He has been a faithful contributor and good friend. He and his wife Debbie will be missed. He reports that the new owner of their house in Lucero will probably continue reporting the data.  I certainly hope this happens as it is the only place in Lucero where we get rain data.

The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "La Niña is present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are below average across the eastcentral and eastern Pacific Ocean. The tropical Pacific atmosphere is consistent with La Niña. La Niña is favored to continue into the Northern Hemisphere summer (53% chance during June-August 2022), with a 40-50% chance of La Niña or ENSO neutral thereafter." If you check out the report, you will see near the end the U.S. seasonal outlooks which are affected by the ENSO.

Here is a link to a source for understanding El Niño.  If you need some help with this, give this a read and you will learn a lot about this important weather phenomenon.

I want to again mention an excellent understandable presentation about El Niño and the ENSO by Mel Strong in his Introduction to Weather and Climate Short Course available on YouTube. I highly recommend this presentation and the entire course. If you listen to just the one lecture on El Niño, you will more clearly understand the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) system and how it generally affects world weather. He is an exceptional teacher and I find all his lectures in the course to be very informative and uniquely understandable.

The IRI (International Research Institute for Climate and Society) (select South America from the Region menu) is predicting that most of Panama will have a 40%+ probability of normal levels of precipitation for the months of April-May-June 2022 (white-gray).

ETESA's hydrology and meteorology section is predicting that Chiriqui will have about average levels of precipitation with upward trends in most areas during April of 2022 thru May 2022. You can read their report and check out the details in the "documents" section at this link.

As I previously mentioned, you can watch a daily video report of Panama weather conditions at the ETESA website or on YouTube.  Here is the link to their YouTube Channel.  If you click the Subscribe button you can get a daily notifications of the report.  You can practice your Spanish skills by watching it!

The alignment of the complex mirror system of the Web Telescope is progressing well.  Your can follow the news about it here.

I had a birthday last month. It was my 79th.  At first I felt a bit sad getting so old and then I realized that I was one of the lucky ones that made it to 79.  I really am a very lucky guy and grateful.

Each advanced birthday I try to do something special to convince family and friends that I am still alive, kicking and younger than I look.  This year I decided to do something mental and redid my bird photo website. I first developed the website in 2013 using WordPress. It has been a challenge to keep it functioning and avoid being hacked.  Recently the site was not working correctly and I decided to get rid of the WordPress platform and recreate it with a Html CSS based website platform.  I hadn't worked seriously with Html CSS coding for quite a while.  Well, I hit the books and redid the website.  My aged brain is still alive and clicking (I wish my wife was convinced!).  If you have any interest and have some spare time, please take a look and see what a 79 year old brain can still do. Of course you won't see the coding behind the pages, but it is there. At least take a look at the first album in the Gallery section.  I will be adding some more albums to the Gallery section that feature our birding adventures in other parts of the world. Take a look here.

Our eldest grandson Logan Johnson from Oregon recently visited us for several weeks.  We enjoyed his company and had some special adventures with him.  One of the adventures included several days at the Mount Totumas Cloud Forest Reserve. It is a very special environment at 6200+ feet of elevation with multiple trails of varying difficulty, good lodging and excellent food. It is managed by Jeffery Dietrich and his wife Alma. We highly recommend their place.  Reservations are required.  We saw a lot of natural beauty while there. The first evening we experienced a stunning sunset on the patio of the main lodge that I want to share with you.

(click on image to enlarge)

 

COVID INFORMATION

MONITORING CORONAVIRUS STATUS LINKS 

At the moment the worldometer reports 491,542,005 cases of COVID worldwide with 6,175,631 deaths and 426,338,640 recovered cases.  The USA has 1,831,520 total cases with 1,008,181 total deaths and 65,606,263 recovered cases. Imagine 6,175,631 dead human beings in the world (most probably an underestimation) and 1,008,181 of the dead human beings are from the United States. while progress has been made we are still not out of the woods with COVID. More of us need to get fully vaccinated and we all should continue the recommended precautions.

The winds are still with us but are gradually subsiding. In the afternoon we see cumulus clouds  developing in the south along the pacific coast. It won't be long before the moisture from the south moves north and we start to get some rain. When this happens, it won't be long before we quickly start complaining about it raining all the time.  Be prepared by having your umbrellas ready to go and your kindles stocked with books ready for more serious reading time.

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com