November 4, 2020

No.139

October 2020
(Back Issues Here)

We had 32.55 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station in October of 2020.  The reports from around the District of Boquete for October indicate significant but variable rain by district as expected for this phase of our rainy season and the different regions.

Rainfall for October 2020
Area	Contributors	October 2020	Total 2020
El Santuario	Robert Boyd	18.96	98.59
Barriade Las Flores	Bill Brick	21.77	n/a
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	33.48	148.10
Jaramillo Arriba	Mark Heyer	22.50	n/a
Jaramillo Abajo	Don Berkowitz	34.61	186.58
Jaramillo Abajo	Bobi McGann	37.20	174.67
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	20.96	119.90
El Salto Arriba	Rodrigo Marciacq	20.24	84.65
Valle Escondido	Doug Remsen	23.55	n/a
Brisas  Boquetenas	Austin Perry	36.50	203.96
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturtz	30.28	173.68
Los Molinos	Sela Burkholder	28.88	181.35
Los Molinos	Fred Donelson	24.26	156.71
El Encanto (Volcancito)	Brian Baldwin	24.88	n/a
Cerro Verde (Volcancito)	Charlotte Lintz	23.72	93.63
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	31.15	129.37
Caldera	Chris Mccall	28.32	n/a
Lucero	Michael Mullin	37.28	212.27
Boquete Country Club	Paul Arrandale	29.97	163.73
Palmira Abajo	Betty Gray	33.60	152.91
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	32.55	135.66
n/a = not currently available but will be posted when available

There is a significant range of reported rainfall data in the District during October. The highest reported was 37.28 inches by Michael Mullions at Lucero.  Bobi McGann reported a similiar amount at Jaramillo Abajo with 37.20 inches.  The lowest reported rainfall for October was reported by Robert Boyd at El Santuario with 18.96 inches.

October, which is often our rainiest month during the rainy season, did not disappoint.  It was rainy! 

The question again is whether or not we had more or less rain than usual?  It sure seemed like we had more. Only the data can reveal the truth.  Fortunately, I have the data for the Palmira Aribba area to answer the question.

The average rainfall in October at the Palmira Arriba station over 14 years of data collection is 27.18 inches of rain with a standard deviation of 8.83 inches and a range of between 15.27 to 45.92 inches.  This month's 32.55 inches is 0.61 standard deviations above the mean.  So we did have more than average rain for the month of October, but not all that much nor was it near the maximum that we have had in the past.

You can check out the data over the past years for yourself.  You can also look at the tables in the Climate Section to see what rains we have had in the month of October over the course of 14 years as well as other variables.

The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "La Niña conditions are present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are below average from the west central to eastern Pacific Ocean. The tropical atmospheric circulation is consistent with La Niña. La Niña is likely to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2020-21 (~85% chance) and into spring 2021 (~60% chance during February-April)."

Here is a link to an excellent 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 60%-70% chance of increased levels of precipitation for the months of November-December-January 2021 (light and dark blue areas).

ETESA's hydrology and meteorology section is predicting that Chiriqui will generally have above normal levels of precipitation in November of 2020. You can read their report and check out the details in the "documents" section at this link. 

As I am writing this report, Tropical Storm Eta is just north of us.  It recently struck Nicaragua and is now moving north easterly as a Tropical Storm and may hit Florida.  Significant flooding is predicted from this system.  Bands of this system are having an effect upon our area contributing to significant rains.  Here is the current satellite image of the system:

 

The Pandemic continues.  At the moment the worldometer reports 48,213,026 cases in the world with 1,227,097 deaths and 34,520,237 recovered cases.  The USA has 9,720,815 cases with 239,012 deaths and 6,245,253 recovered cases.  They report 135,592 cases in Panama with 2,731 deaths and 113,379 recovered cases.

On a more positive note, thanks in part to the confinement of the virus for several months, I recently published a video on YouTube entitled: Some Panama Birds

This video is a collection of Panama bird photos taken over the last 11 years. It is a HD (High Definition) video file and can be streamed on small to very large screens with good definition.  It samples many common and some rare species of Panama Birds.

The entire video is about 60 minutes in length.  You can pause the video at any point by just pressing the space bar or clicking on the "pause" symbol. You can continue by pressing the space bar again or clicking the "play" symbol.

This has been a challenging but enjoyable adventure. Since you have nothing else to do, I invite you to come along, take a look and enjoy the bird images and the music. The video is 60 minutes which is less time that it will take you to watch a commercial movie!

If you like what you see, please give it a "thumbs up" and leave comments at the YouTube site.

You can download an introduction and list of all the birds on the video at this link.

The music on this video are selections of the J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations performed by the talented pianist Kimiko Ishizaka.

Click on the image below to begin the video.

Stay dry and enjoy the video.  Let's hope floods don't hit us.  Normally December is a transition month moving us gradually toward the dry season but the NE Trade Winds usually kick up. You will need to use the umbrella at times, but keep it anchored most of the time.

Lloyd Cripe

MONITORING CORONAVIRUS STATUS LINKS

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com