| July 3, 2017 | No.99 |
June 2017
(Back Issues Here)
June delivered less rain than May. Here at the Palmira Arriba station we logged 13.51 inches of rain. By the end of June we logged a total of 70.73 inches of rain for the year 2017.
Thanks again to all those who contribute their monthly rain data. Here are the totals for June of 2017 for the various District of Boquete areas.
Rainfall for June 2017 |
|||
Area |
Contributors |
June |
Total 2017 |
El Santuario |
Terry Zach |
15.30 |
55.97 |
Jaramillo Abajo |
Sela Burkholder |
27.17 |
104.56 |
Jaramillo Arriba |
Steve Sarner |
19.69 |
91.82 |
Brisas Boquetenas |
Austin Perry |
26.00 |
100.80 |
Los Molinos |
Fred Donelson |
28.84 |
133.00 |
Los Naranjos |
Craig Bennett |
n/a |
n/a |
Lucero (Cielo Paraiso) |
Michael Mullin |
36.91 |
126.59 |
Palmira Abajo |
Betty Gray |
17.68 |
82.83 |
Palmira Arriba |
Lloyd Cripe |
13.51 |
70.73 |
n/a = not currently available but will be posted when available |
|||
There is considerable variability between the areas with a low of 13.51 inches at the Palmira Station and a high of 36.91 inches at Lucero as reported by Michael Mullin.
Looking at the monthly rainfall graph for the Palmira Station from 2007 to the present we see that June averages 17.84 inches of rain with a range of 7.69 to 31.59 inches. In June of this year we had 13.51 inches of rain which is somewhat less than the average of 17.84 per month over the 10 years.
The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "ENSO-neutral is favored (50 to ~55% chance) through the Northern Hemisphere fall 2017."
The IRI (International Research Institute for Climate and Society) (select South America from the Region menu) is reporting the following precipitation predictions for July-August-September of 2017. Note a prediction of lower than normal precipitation for our area (yellow) and generally lower for South America.
E
Although we never know until it happens, based upon the data from past years, July is often lower in rainfall than June. I am okay with that because it usually becomes very rainy in August, September and October. Interestingly, ETESA is predicting higher rainfall for the month of July.
ETESA's, hydrology and meteorology section is predicting that we will have above normal levels of precipitation in Chiriqui and most parts of Panama for the month of July 2017. You can read their report and check out the details for July 2017 in the documents section at this link. I am not sure how they figure this out and come to this conclusion.
I had an interesting month of June with our WeatherHawk weather station. By way of background, I need to tell you how all of this works. The weather station sits on top of a 20 foot pole. It needs electricity to function so there is a solar panel that keeps a 12 volt battery charged. Inside the station there is a computer/mother board that gets information from various sensors (temperature, humidity, wind direction, wind speed, solar radiation, rainfall, etc.). The information is then stored in a data logger. Every 3 minutes a radio inside the station sends the data to a radio antenna in our house and a radio receives it and sends to data to the 24/7 computer where the data gets stored and processed by the WeatherHawk software. The information is then posted to the internet where you can read it. That is how all of this works.
I have to keep my eye on the details and make sure it is all working correctly. Over the last year I would occasionally get an error message that the station wasn't communicating with the software. I would have to go through a few steps to correct this. The data was being collected and stored in the station but having problems getting to the software in the main computer. No data was lost, but it wasn't always being communicated. Finally this got worse and I would have to tweak things often. It was an intermittent problem and was difficult to nail down. Cursing didn't seem to help!
Over a week ago I couldn't correct the problem. So I had to go into high gear and figure out what the problem was. I contacted the WeatherHawk technical support (Jeff Balls) and went to work trouble shooting. I won't bore you with all the fun and frustrating details, but eventually (after going up and down the 20 foot pole on an extention ladder many times and taking the station down and up over and over) we figured it out.
After 10+ years of service in all kinds of weather to include nearby lightning strikes, the radio in the station had stopped working. A new one is on it's way to Panama. In the mean time a good friend, Jeff Scott, is loaning me the radio out of his yet uninstalled used WeatherHawk until the new one arrives. Here is a photo of the failed radio:
All of this has kept me out of the bars and off the couch. Perhaps it is a good thing?
The original installation of the weather station cost about $2,500.00. Over 10+ years various maintenance issues have occurred. The worst was the motherboard failure after some storms. WeatherHawk technical support has always been very helpful. I can't say enough good things about this company. It pays to buy reliable good quality equipment with solid service support. Good equipment can be repaired. The recent repair is costing about $300.00, but that will put things back in good service for hopefully more years and it is a lot less than paying about $4500.00 to replace and install a new station at today's prices.
As soon as the new radio arrives, I will climb the pole again and take down the station so the replacement repair can be completed. Things will be configured and checked while it is hardwired to the computer and then the station will be put back on top of the 20 foot pole. The radio will then go to work tirelessly sending the data. I am hoping that it isn't raining. It is hard to hold an umbrella while balancing atop a fully extended ladder and a weather station in one hand. My wife is hoping that she doesn't read about her old man in the obits!
Lloyd Cripe