April 3, 2025

No.192

March 2025
(Back Issues Here)

We had 1.14 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station during the month of March 2025.

Rainfall for March 2025
Area	Contributors	March 2025	Total 2025
El Salto Arriba	Beth Corwin	0.57	2.56
Bajo Lino	Rodrigo Marciacq	n/a	n/a
Los Cabazos	Don Hughes	0.64	4.91
Jaramillo Arriba	Steve Sarner	1.94	7.64
Jaramillo Arriba	Mark Heyer	0.99	2.97
Jaramillo Central	Colleen Anderson	1.59	4.35
Jaramillo Abajo	John McGann	3.93	6.89
Palo Alto	Nancy Pettersen	1.93	17.23
Valle Escondido	Gisela Remsen	0.34	1.75
Brisas  Boquetenas	Dennis Decorte	n/a	n/a
Brisas Boquetenas	Richard Sturz	n/a	n/a
El Encanto (Volcancito)	Brian Baldwin	1.39	3.41
Cerro Verde (Volcancito)	Charlotte Lintz	0.09	2.49
Santa Lucia	Paula Litt	1.25	3.55
Caldera	Chris McCall	1.36	4.38
Lucero	Mike Joy	3.56	8.69
Palmira Abajo	Andrea Boraine	n/a	n/a
Palmira Abajo	Dave Nichols	1.27	5.02
Palmira Arriba	Lloyd Cripe	1.14	2.94
N/A = Not Available Red = Highest rainfalls Green = Lowest rainfall

The Dry Season continues with some wind and very little rain.  You can check the table above to see where the highest and lowest rainfalls were in the District during March.

Here at Palmira Arriba we had 1.14 inches of rain.  Checking the past data from the Palmira Arriba Station over a span of 18 years, the average rainfall for the months of March is 1.90 inches.  The range is 7.09  inches with a low of 0.00 to a high of 7.09 inches. This month's 1.14 inches is a little below the mean of 1.90 but is well within the normal range for the months of March.

Palmira Arriba Station March Rainfalls over 18 Years

At the Palmira Arriba Station we had 3 days with some measureable precipitation (often a light rain or mist - Bajareque) and 28 days without a drop. The month was mainly a fairly typical dry season March for us here in Palmira. You can see from the Table that most of the District of Boquete had a low rainfall. Mike Joy had the most with 3.56 inches at Lucero.

The average winds were 5.45 mph and generally from the NE.  Our maximum wind was gusts at 24.2 mph.  Winds were generally lower than in the month of February. You can check out all of our (Palmira Station) previous monthly data for the months of March at this link.

The latest ENSO Cycle Report is saying that "La Niña conditions are present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are near-to-below average in the central Pacific Ocean and are above-average in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Tropical Pacific atmospheric anomalies are consistent with La Niña. ENSO-neutral is favored to develop in the next month and persist through Northern Hemisphere summer (62% chance in June-August 2025)."

Here is a link to a source to better understand El Niño in case you need some help interpreting what this all means. Give this a read and you will learn a lot about this important weather phenomenon that affects global weather. It has more effect upon the Northern Latitudes than it has upon us here in the tropics.  

The IRI (International Research Institute for Climate and Society) (select South America from the Region menu) is predicting slight probability (45%) of above normal rainfall for most of Panama during the months of April - May - June of 2025 (light green).

IMHPA (Instituto de Meteorología e Hidrología de Panamá) documents section predicts that during April"... Rainfall values ​​are expected to be normal, with an upward trend in the provinces of Chiriquí, Central Veraguas, Coclé, Colón, Panama, and Western Panama. However, normal rainfall is expected with a downward trend in the provinces of Bocas del Toro, Northern Veraguas, and Southern Darién.
For the rest of the country, normal monthly rainfall is expected..."  You can read their entire report and check out the details in the "documents" section at this link.  

Toward the end of March we went to the Las Lajas beach a couple of days staying at the Las Lajas Resort Hotel to continue the celebration of my 82nd Birthday with our daughter and son-in-law. We had a good time in a different environment from our cool Boquete Paradise. Breezes in the shaded helped. Both Sunrises and Sunsets were special. Worth getting up a little early to see the beauty. Here is a picture of the sunrise on March 27 at about 6:30:

 April will probably be another dry season month but we may get a little more rain than we got in the month of march. We will gradually transition into the rainy season and certainly by May wish we were dry again. Enjoy the days as they come. Eventually we will get wet!

Lloyd Cripe

lcripe@boqueteweather.com