July 3, 2022

No.159

June 2022
(Back Issues Here)

June was a very rainy month.  We had 33.36 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station. 

Rainfall for June 2022
Area	Contributors	June 2022	Total 2022
El Salto Arriba	Beth Corwin	25.62	53.46
El Santuario	Robert Boyd	27.87	68.46
El Santuario	Rodrigo Marciacq	24.70	65.92
Barriade Las Flores	Bill Brick	25.56	66.46
Los Cabezos	Don Hughes	33.47	77.87
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	43.32	109.46
Jaramillo Arriba	Mark Heyer	31.34	77.59
Jaramillo Central	Dave Nichols	39.69	95.80
Jaramillo Abajo	Don Berkowitz	n/a	n/a
Jaramillo Abajo	John McGann	36.80	98.03
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	28.13	79.22
Valle Escondido	Doug Remsen	29.73	54.18
Brisas  Boquetenas	Austin Perry	44.60	102.08
Brisas  Boquetenas	Dennis DeCorte	n/a	n/a
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturtz	n/a	n/a
Los Molinos	Sela Burkholder	42.58	96.68
El Encanto (Volcancito)	Brian Baldwin	33.23	73.21
Cerro Verde (Volcancito)	Charlotte Lintz	22.75	n/a
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	33.22	76.31
Caldera	Chris Mccall	48.41	112.8
Lucero	Mike Joy	44.60	n/a
Boquete Country Club	Paul Arrandale	33.46	74.67
Palmira Abajo	Betty Gray	32.08	79.26
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	33.36	80.87
El Banco	Laura Daniels	n/a	n/a

At the Palmira Arriba Station we recorded 33.36 inches of rain for June. This is the most rain for June that I have recorded in the 16 years of data collection.  This table summarizes the rain data for June from 2007 through 2022:

Palmira Arriba Station June Rainfall over 16 Years

The average for the month of June from this data is 17.58 inches with a standard deviation of 8.13 inches. This months 33.36 inches is 1.94 standard deviations above the mean. This fits what we experienced - a lot of rain.  Imagine, almost 3 feet of rain in a month.  That is a lot of water.

Take a look at this table to compare the amount of rain per month over the course of 16 years at the Palmira Arriba Station.  You can check each month for 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.

The reports from around the District of Boquete for June 2022 indicate lots of rain.

The highest rainfalls reported around the District of Boquete were Chris Mccall with 48.41 inches at Caldera, and with Mike Joy at Lucero and Austin Perry at Brisas Boquetenas, each reporting 44.6 inches.  Think about this.  That is 4 feet of rain during one month!  That is a lot of water. Were does it all go?  Down hill gorging streams and rivers. You need good drainage systems to manage all of this water and avoid flooding.

The lowest rainfall for the month was reported by Charlotte Lintz at Cerro Verde on the upper Volcancito road with 22.75 inches.  She reports that this is the most rain she has seen in her area during June months.

Steve Sarner at Jaramillo Arriba (way up there) reported 43.32 inches of rain in June and comments:

• Most rain in June we've recorded. Previous high was 29.06 inches in 2010.  The June average was 18.86 inches, so last month was well over twice the average.

• First time we've had over 100 inches the first half (of year) 109.48 inches.  Previous high was 91.82 in 2017.

• First time we've had over 100 inches in the second quarter, 104.94 inches. Previous high was 80.96 inches in 2017.

• We had measureable rain every day in June.  Only 4 days were less than 0.10 inches. Rain every day in a month has only happened three other times in our records:  August 2010, September 2010 and October 2016. In 2010 we had 248.83 inches.  It's looking like a wet year.

Of course we all want to know why so much rain?  The answer is both simple and complex.  The simple reason that we had so much rain is because all the conditions necessary for it to happen, happened! Like large air masses with lots of moisture in them, winds blowing them the right direction and ITCZ over our area, etc..  The complicated reason is that weather patterns are changing all over the world because of climate change. More tropical storm systems and hurricanes are developing over the Caribbean and we get some of their effects from their spiraling bands although we don't get direct hits. La Niña is present and is lingering which affects our precipitation. In some ways here in the tropics we are protected a bit from climate change, but but not completely. Temperatures are moderated, but more and excessive precipitation is very likely.  

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 through the end of the year, the odds for La Niña decrease into the Northern Hemisphere late summer (52% chance in July-September 2022) before slightly increasing through the Northern Hemisphere fall and early winter 2022 (58-59% 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 July-August-September 2022 (light to medium-green).

ETESA's hydrology and meteorology section is predicting that Chiriqui will have basically normal levels of precipitation during July 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!

I frequently get asked to forecast the Boquete weather.  Unfortunately I can't do that.  I don't have the necessary resources available to make predictions. The government of Panama has limited weather reporting capabilities and doesn't have the necessary weather infrastructure to make weather predictions. Alan Baumbach recently sent me a link to an excellent video entitled "How Weather Forecasting Works."  I highly recommend watching this video to appreciate what is involved in making weather predictions and why we can't do them here.

I will however go out on a limb and predict that we will have more rain this month.  Whether or not we are going to have more or less than in previous years, only time will tell, but I have hunch that we are in for a lot of rain! 

COVID INFORMATION

MONITORING CORONAVIRUS STATUS LINKS 

COVID is still with us and will be for some time.  At the moment the worldometer reports 554,282,969 cases of COVID worldwide with 6,361,199 deaths and 528,997,058 recovered cases.  The USA has 89,527,256 total cases with 1,043,316 total deaths and 85,019,924 recovered cases. 

Imagine 6,361,199  dead human beings in the world (most probably an underestimation) and 1,043,316 of the dead human beings are from the United States. While progress has been made in trying to control all of this, we are still not completely out of the woods with COVID. Between 500-1000 persons still die each day in the U.S. die from COVID!  Get vaccinated and take care to project yourself and others. I think that we need to cooperate and work together on this. It is a public health matter and not an individual matter of independence.  Sometimes we need to do what is best for the group.    

 

Your investments in umbrellas are probably paying off unless like me, you leave home and forget to take them with you. Maybe best to stay home given the heavy rains and the price of gas! Best to "Stream" at home rather than face the streams in the streets. 

Happy 4th of July to all the U.S. Expats despite the polarizations going on up north. I am still proud of the country I came from and served despite all the challenges. Celebrate and support Democracy!

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com