July 3, 2021

No.147

June 2021
(Back Issues Here)

We had 9.74 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station in June of 2021.  This is less rain than usual in the month of June. The reports from around the District of Boquete for June indicate considerable variability. 

Rainfall for June 2021
Area	Contributors	June 2021	Total 2021
El Salto Arriba	Ryokan Neko	11.30	n/a
El Santuario	Robert Boyd	6.45	43.01
El Santuario	Rodrigo Marciacq	5.35	40.27
Barriade Las Flores	Bill Brick	7.24	39.92
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	14.09	63.37
Jaramillo Arriba	Mark Heyer	10.10	49.10
Jaramillo Central	Dave Nichols	12.11	47.90
Jaramillo Abajo	Don Berkowitz	16.63	54.93
Jaramillo Abajo	Bobi McGann	17.00	55.27
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	7.09	63.94
Valle Escondido	Doug Remsen	7.00	29.02
Brisas  Boquetenas	Austin Perry	23.70	n/a
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturtz	n/a	n/a
Los Molinos	Sela Burkholder	19.37	57.94
Los Molinos	Fred Donelson	n/a	n/a
El Encanto (Volcancito)	Brian Baldwin	8.32	n/a
Cerro Verde (Volcancito)	Charlotte Lintz	9.78	n/a
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	8.28	34.82
Caldera	Chris Mccall	15.92	52.61
Lucero	Michael Mullin	25.84	74.45
Boquete Country Club	Paul Arrandale	14.38	49.25
Palmira Abajo	Betty Gray	12.33	44.80
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	9.74	38.00
El Banco	Laura Daniels	18.64	n/a

The highest rainfall for April 2021 in the District of Boquete was reported by Michael Mullin at Lucero with 25.84 inches. The lowest rainfall was reported ...... inches.

The rainfall here at Palmira Arriba was 9.74 inches. Over the span of 16 years, the mean rainfall for June has been 20.62 inches at this station. The range has been between 2.00 and 31.5 inches with a mean of 15.62 for June.  This year, we had a less than average rainfall for the month with 9.74 inches which is 0.75 standard deviations below the mean. The following charts gives you the details of June rains over the 16 years.  

 

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.

The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "ENSO-neutral conditions are present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are near average across most of the Pacific Ocean. ENSO-neutral is favored through the Northern Hemisphere summer (78% chance for the June-August season) and fall (50% chance for the September November season)."

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 40-45% probability of below normal levels of precipitation for the months of July-August-September 2021 (yellow/orange areas).

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

The first full hurricane of the season, Elsa is moving through the Caribbean and is on course to pass over Florida in the next couple of days.  Whether it will be at hurricane or tropical storm force is yet to be determined.  If you want to know more about it and follow it's development checkout the videos at Tropical Tidbits.  This storm may pose significant problems for the search and rescue efforts at the collapsed condo in Surfside, Florida.  Let's hope for the best.  Here is the current satellite image of the Caribbean with Elsa:

 

 

We got our second Pfizer vaccination on June 23 at the Palmira Central School. Again, they were very well organized and did a professional job. The internet registry notified us of our appointments and shortly after the second injection sent us a notification that we had received our second shots.  We now have a card that verifies that we are fully vaccinated.  Again, I want to encourage people to get vaccinated. You need to get on the registry and then watch the news to know what age groups are being vaccinated and where.  Check regularly to verify your appointments.

I am aware of varying opinions about getting vaccinated, but opinions should not be confused with facts.  The weight of scientific medical evidence promotes the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines.  We had sore arms for a couple of days but no other symptoms.  I highly recommend that you follow the reliable evidence, use good sense and get vaccinated. We are glad and reassured that we are now less vulnerable to serious symptoms, hospitalization and possible death from the virus. 

At the moment the worldometer reports 184,076,499 cases worldwide with 3,983,564 deaths and 168,455,944 recovered cases.  The USA has 34,580,969 total cases with 621,177 total deaths and 29,072,997 recovered cases.  The Panama report is still not clear or reliable. We don't really know the number of cases in country and the various Provinces.  However, we are still on partial lockdowns here in Panama. While some parts of the developed world are making progress mainly due to vaccinations, this is not a time to be complacent or lackadaisical regarding this pandemic.

MONITORING CORONAVIRUS STATUS LINKS 

Some have asked why I dwell on the virus in the weather report?  What does this have to do with the weather?  Not much, but I think that it is an important community matter that needs a voice and our attention. 

Infectious diseases require community action.  This is not an individual matter.  This is not a time for individualism and resistant behavior.  We have to pull together and work globally as a community to solve this deadly problem.  We need to trust each other and pull together to conquer this.  Distrust won't do the job.  That is why we have Public Health systems.  Idiosyncratic thoughts and actions won't do the job.  We have to come together, listen to the educated dedicated trusted voices and follow the guidance together.  I am trying to support this important sensible approach.

Another part of this is very personal.  My grandmother on my mother's side died in the 1918 flu epidemic leaving behind 5 young children.  This was very traumatic to her husband and the 5 children.  All of the children were adopted out to different families and they had little-to-no-contact with each other.  I grew up never knowing my grandmother or my mother's siblings.  My mother who was about 5 years old when she lost her mother, suffered deeply from this loss.  She was for the rest of her life always anxious and fearful, especially of illness, and she was plagued with psychosomatic illnesses.  This had a powerful impact upon my family and significantly shaped my life.  Viruses can cause death and many other sorrows.  They should be taken seriously and all possible should be done to spare their effects.

It took many years to unravel the specific causes of the 1918 pandemic and many more years to create vaccines to prevent and ameliorate the deadly effects of flu.  The public health systems that grew out of this and other pandemics put in place the systems that we now have that can rapidly tackle and cope with current and future pandemics.  We are very fortunate that such progress exists.  The rapid availability of vaccines to effectively deal with this current pandemic is an incredible gift as a result of many years of dedicated organized scientific effort and progress.  I think that we should be grateful applauding, promoting and cooperating with these efforts. I am personally grateful that we are dealing with all of this in 2021 and not in 1918.

If you haven't yet seen it, take the time to watch this recent 4 part PBS series to better understand how fortunate we are:  Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer 

Until next time, enjoy the weather and stay well. If you are well, you will enjoy whatever weather better. 

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com