| May 3, 2025 | No.193 |
April 2025
(Back Issues Here)
We had 5.12 inches of rain at the Palmira Arriba Station during the month of April 2025.
Rainfall for April 2025 |
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Area |
Contributors |
April 2025 |
Total 2025 |
| El Salto Arriba | Beth Corwin | 2.64 | 5.20 |
| Bajo Lino | Rodrigo Marciacq | 1.69 | n/a |
| Los Cabazos | Don Hughes | 1.80 | 6.71 |
Jaramillo Arriba |
Steve Sarner |
4.40 | 12.04 |
| Jaramillo Arriba | Mark Heyer | n/a | n/a |
| Jaramillo Central | Colleen Anderson | 0.89 | 5.24 |
Jaramillo Abajo |
John McGann |
2.86 | 9.75 |
| Palo Alto | Nancy Pettersen | 3.81 | 21.04 |
| Valle Escondido | Gisela Remsen | 2.16 | 3.91 |
| Brisas Boquetenas | Dennis Decorte | n/a | n/a |
| Brisas Boquetenas | Richard Sturz | n/a | n/a |
| El Encanto (Volcancito) | Brian Baldwin | 3.20 | 6.61 |
Cerro Verde (Volcancito) |
Charlotte Lintz |
3.40 | 5.89 |
Santa Lucia |
Paula Litt |
5.49 | 9.04 |
| Caldera | Chris McCall | 2.40 | 6.78 |
| Lucero | Mike Joy | 6.60 | 15.29 |
| Palmira Abajo | Dave Nichols | 3.44 | 8.46 |
Palmira Arriba |
Lloyd Cripe |
5.12 | 8.06 |
| N/A = Not
Available Red = Highest rainfalls Green = Lowest rainfall |
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The Dry Season continued with some wind and little rain but more than we had in March. 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 5.12 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 April is 6.88 inches. The range is 18.02 inches with a low of 0.28 to a high of 18.30 inches. This month's 5.12 inches is a little below the mean of 6.88 (-0.33 standard deviations) but is within the normal statistical range for the months of April.
Palmira Arriba Station April Rainfalls over 18 Years
At the Palmira Arriba Station we had 9 days with some measureable precipitation (often a light rain or mist - Bajareque) and 21 days without a drop. The month was mainly a fairly typical dry season April for us here in Palmira. You can see from the Table above that most of the District of Boquete had a low rainfall. Mike Joy had the most with 6.60 inches at Lucero. The lowest reported was Colleen Anderson in Jaramillo Cental with 0.89 inches.
The average winds at the Palmira Arriba station were 4.50 mph and generally from the NE. Our maximum wind gust was 25.3 mph. Winds were generally a little lower than in the previous month of March which is expected as we approach the rainy season. You can check out all of our (Palmira Station) previous monthly data for the months of April at this link.
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 during the Northern Hemisphere summer, with a greater than 50% chance through August-October 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 (40%) of normal climate rainfall for most of Panama during the months of May - June - July of 2025 (White).
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IMHPA (Instituto de Meteorología e Hidrología de Panamá) documents section predicts that during May "... Rainfall values are expected to be normal, with a slight upward trend for the southeast of Los Santos province and northern Coclé. 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.
Station Repairs
I had to make some WeatherHawk repairs this month. The Temperature and Relative Humidity sensors needed replacement. Although the WeatherHawk station is no longer sold, parts are still available. This required taking the station down, installing the new sensors, updating firmware and then putting the station back on its 20 foot pole. This was all accomplished successfully. You can take a look at this process at the repair album (click on the small images to enlarge). Over the 18+ years of the station's operation a number of repairs and updates were necessary. Fortunately I have had good technical support from the Campbell Scientific tech support group. So far so good with getting parts and using the ladder!
18 Years of Data Analysis
The Palmira Arriba Weather Station was installed in early 2007 and made public by way of the website Boqueteweather.com in March of 2007. Over the 18 years, weather data has been collected and stored every minute 24/7. Consequently the entire data base is quite large.
Michael Mardis has been working several months analyzing this massive collection of data along with other Boquete station locations and data. His dedicated work on this is impressive and much appreciated.
I made the 18 years of the Palmira Arriba data available to him and he has given me permission to share some of his graphs with you. You can take a look via this link. I plan to share more specific thoughts about these graphs in next month's report.
This is part of a project Mark Heyer initiated to try and develop a weather network of Ambient Weather Stations in the District of Boquete. The hope is to eventually develop a webpage with a map of all the Boquete stations and links to all the current live and historical data so people can follow the real time weather and learn more from the history about the microclimate trends of the District. You can find out more about this ambitious project by visiting Boquete Weather Network on Facebook or contacting Mark Heyer.
We are now plunging well into the rainy season. We will certainly have more rain in May than we had in the previous months of 2025. Early mornings will often be bright and even sunny. By noon clouds will develop and by the afternoons rain wil often show up.
Here is an example of today:
Looking South 6:38 This Morning
Looking North 6:41 This Morning
Looking South 10:38
Looking South 12:17
Looking South 14:38 Rain Starting
Looking South at 3:42 Raining Heavy
We ended up having 2.37 inches of rain today. This a good example of a typical rainy day during the rainy season. Interestingly Meteoblue forecast predicted this accurately. Note Sunday 04.05 Precipitation:
May is usually one of our rainiest months. So be prepared with those umbrellas for some significant downpours. Time to fertilize the coffee plants.
Lloyd Cripe