June 3, 2022

No.158

May 2022
(Back Issues Here)

May was a rainy month as expected.  We are fully into the rainy season.  We had 28.11 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station. 

Rainfall for May 2022
Area	Contributors	May 2022	Total 2022
El Salto Arriba	Beth Corwin	17.90	27.84
El Santuario	Robert Boyd	17.37	39.58
El Santuario	Rodrigo Marciacq	19.01	41.22
Barriade Las Flores	Bill Brick	20.22	40.90
Los Cabezos	Don Hughes	21.40	44.40
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	39.20	66.14
Jaramillo Arriba	Mark Heyer	23.82	46.25
Jaramillo Central	Dave Nichols	34.80	56.11
Jaramillo Abajo	Don Berkowitz	35.82	58.01
Jaramillo Abajo	John McGann	40.34	61.23
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	19.53	51.09
Valle Escondido	Doug Remsen	14.91	24.45
Brisas  Boquetenas	Austin Perry	30.75	57.48
Brisas  Boquetenas	Dennis DeCorte	n/a	n/a
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturtz	29.01	59.57
Los Molinos	Sela Burkholder	25.97	54.10
El Encanto (Volcancito)	Brian Baldwin	19.99	39.98
Cerro Verde (Volcancito)	Charlotte Lintz	17.61	n/a
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	24.24	43.09
Caldera	Chris Mccall	36.68	64.43
Lucero	Mike Joy	33.91	n/a
Boquete Country Club	Paul Arrandale	26.10	41.21
Palmira Abajo	Betty Gray	29.87	47.18
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	28.11	47.51
El Banco	Laura Daniels	27.66	56.30

The reports from around the District of Boquete for May 2022 generally indicate lots of rain with of course some variation of the actual amounts.

John McGann reported the highest amount with 40.34 inches in Jaramillo Abajo.  Chris Mccall reports 36.68 inches in the Caldera area.  Doug Remsen reports a low of 14.91 inches at Valle Escondido. He has good equipment and carefully records the data so I trust his measurements. Other areas report 17+ inches (see table above).

At the Palmira Arriba Station we recorded 28.11 inches of rain for May. Is this higher or lower than expected/recorded for the month of May?

This table summarizes the information I have for the months of May from the year 2007 to the present.  The average for the month of May from this data is 22.06 inches with a standard deviation of 10.57 inches. This months 28.11 inches is 0.57 standard deviations above the mean. So we had more than the mean but not excessively above normal.  

Palmira Arriba Station May Rainfall over 16 Years

I created a new table that helps compare the amount of rain per month over the course of 16 years.  Check it out here. You can check each month yourself and see how the current month falls compared to other years. You can also look at the tables in the Climate Section to see what rains we had in various months over the course of the last 16 years as well as check the other weather variables.

We are fully into the rainy season.  I have mentioned many times that May and October are commonly the rainiest months during the rainy season. When we had a major flood in 2008 many of the locals told me about one of the biggest floods in Boquete Bajo history many years ago that occurred in the month of May!

On May 29 from 3:00pm to 6:00pm we had 3.21 inches of rain here at the Palmira station.  With this heavy rain came drainage flooding into the Los Naranjos area of Boquete. Drainage from the green houses up in El Salto had to go somewhere so a flooding stream/river developed that shot right down the hill into Los Naranjos.  This has been an accident waiting to happen!  When all of those greenhouses were built there was not careful thought and engineering put into what the drainage catchment would require. Extensive drainage was needed.  The flooding on May 29 into Los Naranjos was the unfortunate result.  This needs to be carefully restudied and further engineering implemented to avoid future disasters. As the old saying goes, "A stitch in time, saves nine." "Si Dios quiere" won't work.  I was taught that "God only takes care of those who take care of themselves!" 

The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "La Niña is present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are below average across most of the Pacific Ocean. The tropical Pacific atmosphere is consistent with La Niña. Though La Niña is favored to continue, the odds for La Niña decrease into the late Northern Hemisphere summer (58% chance in August-October 2022) before slightly increasing through the Northern Hemisphere fall and early winter 2022 (61% chance)."

Here is a link to a source for a better 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 also want to mention again 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 to learn more about weather. 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 45 to 50% probability of above average levels of precipitation for the months of June-July-August 2022 (light to medium-green).

ETESA's hydrology and meteorology section is predicting that Chiriqui will have above average levels of precipitation during June of 2022. You can read their report and check out the details in the "documents" section at this link.

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 and the bell you get daily notifications of the report.  You also get to practice your Spanish skills by watching it!

NOAA is predicting that we will have an above normal Atlantic Hurricane Season.  While we don't usually get direct hurricane hits here in Panama, they can and do adversely affect our weather when their spirals pass nearby causing more winds and dumping heavy rains.

I mentioned last month that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published the Working Group III report on Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. This is the third part of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report on Climate Change. Here is a link to a short video about the recent report. I think the IPCC is the most authoritative voice regarding the facts of climate change.  I highly recommend reading their reports and supporting political leaders implementing their recommendations. Did you check it out?  If not, take a look.  Better late than never!  

COVID INFORMATION

MONITORING CORONAVIRUS STATUS LINKS 

COVID is still with us and will be for some time.  At the moment the worldometer reports 534,887,772 cases of COVID worldwide with 6,319,373 deaths and 505,651,880 recovered cases.  The USA has 86,450,603 total cases with 1,033,369 total deaths and 82,463,506 recovered cases. Imagine 6,319,373  dead human beings in the world (most probably an underestimation) and 1,033,369 of the dead human beings are from the United States. While progress has been made in trying to control these, we are still not completely out of the woods with COVID. More of us need to get fully vaccinated along with boosters and we all should continue the recommended precautions by qualified public health officials. We need to cooperate and work together on this.    

We went to Oaxaca, Mexico for a week in early May to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary on May 11.  Our eldest daughter Julie and her boyfriend Wade (our wonderful "illegal son-in-law") joined us.  We had a great time celebrating in Oaxaca.  The weather was sunny with no rain.  In case you haven't discovered it, this is a good way to cope with lots of rain during the very rainy months along with the Mezcal!

Of course we came home to lots of rain, but for some reason we are able to better cope with it using our umbrellas and the 3 bottles from Mexico!

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com