May 3, 2021

No.145

April 2021
(Back Issues Here)

We had 14.10 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station in April of 2021.  More rain than usual for the month of April. The reports from around the District of Boquete for April indicate that there was more rain.  April is often a transition month into the rainy season which is typically in full swing during the month of May onward.  May is often one of the rainiest months for us.

Rainfall for April 2021
Area	Contributors	April 2021	Total 2021
El Salto Arriba	Ryokan Neko	?	n/a
El Santuario	Robert Boyd	16.31	27.59
El Santuario	Rodrigo Marciacq	15.48	26.63
Barriade Las Flores	Bill Brick	18.31	25.20
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	22.34	34.24
Jaramillo Arriba	Mark Heyer	19.00	27.40
Jaramillo Central	Dave Nichols	18.33	23.92
Jaramillo Abajo	Don Berkowitz	18.09	22.90
Jaramillo Abajo	Bobi McGann	18.67	24.25
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	18.68	43.69
Valle Escondido	Doug Remsen	11.20	15.61
Brisas  Boquetenas	Austin Perry	n/a	n/a
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturtz	21.11	26.32
Los Molinos	Sela Burkholder	18.44	22.39
Los Molinos	Fred Donelson	14.50	20.43
El Encanto (Volcancito)	Brian Baldwin	13.79	17.67
Cerro Verde (Volcancito)	Charlotte Lintz	n/a	n/a
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	14.43	17.79
Caldera	Chris Mccall	15.00	18.15
Lucero	Michael Mullin	18.38	27.11
Boquete Country Club	Paul Arrandale	16.44	21.52
Palmira Abajo	Betty Gray	15.69	20.03
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	14.10	16.86
El Banco	Laura Daniels	17.76	n/a

The highest rainfall for April 2021 in the District of Boquete was reported by Steve Sarner at Jaramillo Arriba with 22.34 inches. Richard Sturtz at Brisas Boquetenas reported 21.11 inches of rain.  The lowest rainfall was reported by Doug Remsen at Valle Escondido with 11.20 inches.

A new contributor to our rain data is Laura Daniels at El Banco (near Potrerillos Arriba) reporting 17.76 inches for the month of April.  Thanks Laura for joining our rain data project.

The rainfall here at Palmira Arriba was 14.10 inches. Over the span of 16 years, the mean rainfall here for April has been 6.48 inches with a standard deviation of 4.99 inches.  The range has been between 0.28 and 16.23 inches (15.95 inches).  The rainfall here in April was 1.95 standard deviations above the mean compared to the other 15 years.  We are clearly now entering the full rainy season.

You can look for yourself at a graph of rain data for all the months over the course of the years I have published our rain data.  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 15 years as well as other weather variables.

As I mentioned last month, Chris Mccall is developing a web site where local Ambient Weather Stations are listed on a map graphic and you can click on a station to see the current weather data.  He will also have a section where weather matters can be discussed by the station owners.  The site will be available to all.  If you have one of these stations and would like to be listed, please contact him at this email address. I will let you know when his site is up and available to the general public.  

The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "La Niña is present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are below average over the eastcentral to eastern Pacific Ocean. The tropical atmospheric circulation is consistent with La Niña. A transition from La Niña to ENSO-Neutral is likely in the next month or so, with an 80% chance of ENSO-neutral during May-July 2021."

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.

The IRI (International Research Institute for Climate and Society) (select South America from the Region menu) is predicting that parts of Panama will have a 40% probability of below normal levels of precipitation for the months of May-June-July 2021 (yellow areas).

ETESA's hydrology and meteorology section is predicting that Chiriqui will generally have above normal levels of precipitation during May of 2021. You can read their report and check out the details in the "documents" section at this link.  This chart summarizes their predictions.

Judy Sacco asked me a couple of weeks ago "Do you have a link to a good site that shows weather systems in and around Panama and the Caribbean? Ones with motion - radar etc. I used to have two good ones, but they aren't working anymore."  With changes in the GOES system, we lost our links to some good loops of the weather in our area.  I used to use such loops daily and also missed seeing the information they provided.  I went to work searching out some new ones.

Here are a couple of sources that I ran across and want to share with you.  I will add them to this website and frequently use them:

 The first is Mike's Weather Page.  It is a hodge-podge page of weather following resources that includes some useful sites for following Caribbean weather.  You have to hunt around and find what you like and want to use, but it is probably there if you stick with it and can find it!

The second one is the Central America NOAA GOES Viewer page. You can select various sector view options to include animations.  I particularly like the first image in the matrix (GEO Color) and by selecting it on the viewer page and moving your mouse over the image you can position the view over Panama.  You can also select the Animation Loop (I usually select 24 frames for the loop) and then see the 4 hour loop with 24 frames.  It gives you a good idea of the recent air moisture and movements.  They are very good images. Here is an example of the image from an Animation today:

We are still waiting for our vaccinations.  Although we are in the geriatric group that is currently getting vaccinated here in Panama, they started in the Province of Panama and gradually coming to the Province of Chiriqui.  We are hoping they will get here by mid month.  We will get in line as soon as we can.  We are on both of the country's registries.

You need to get on the registry and then check regularly to verify your appointment.  We are in both registries (Panama and Chiriqui) but so far no appointments.  We don't really know how soon they will be available to us although the rumor is by mid-May.  You can read the latest news about vaccinations from the Ministry of Health at this La Prensa link. 

The USA has been making positive progress with vaccinations and reducing cases but some parts of the world are on fire with the virus, such as India and Brazil.  At the moment the worldometer reports 154,676,241 cases worldwide with 3,233,390 deaths and 132,137,381 recovered cases.  The USA has 33,236,875 total cases with 591,622 total deaths and 25,912,297 recovered cases.  The Panama report is still not clear or reliable.

MONITORING CORONAVIRUS STATUS LINKS 

The rainy season is upon us.  If you haven't already done it, get the umbrellas out, oiled and keep them by your side and quickly overhead when often needed.  It won't belong before we are whining and asking, "Are we there yet...when will the rain stop?"

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com