The Costa Rica's national weather service – Instituto Meteorológico Nacional (IMN) – is predicting an intense rain season for 2010, in contrast to the light rainy season of 2009.
El Nino's disappearance is being attributed to the heavy rain forecast for this year.
The heavy rain is also attributed to an increase in hurricanes and cyclones in the Atlantic for 2010. Costa Rica will not be directly hit, but it will feel the affects of most of the hurricanes (mostly from "cola" or tail of the hurricane).
According to the IMN, the Pacific coast and the Central Valley will be the most affected areas.
The cold front did appear on Thursday just as predicted. Central Valley residents are welcoming breezes and lower temperatures as they recover from some of the hottest weather of the year. On the coast, however, the predicted temperatures for today still are in the 90s (between 32 and 36 C). The latter being in Liberia (97F). Read more »
According to the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional, a high pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico is pushing more moisture over the Caribbean coast and the northern zone of Costa Rica. This means continuing rain over ground that already is soaked.
The rivers in the canton of Talamanca are rising, but there are no reports yet of serious flooding. Read more »
The Costa Rican weather service (Instituto Meteorológico Nacional, IMN) is predicting an early transition to the dry season, about a week earlier than normal.
They predict that the start of the season will be happening between November 7 and 11 in the Northern Pacific region of Guanacaste, November 12 to 16 in the Central Valley (San José), between December 12 and 16 in the Central Pacific (Jacó and Quepos) and the first week of January for the Southern Pacific. Read more »
The Instituto Meteorologico Nacional (IMN) predicts that the low rainfall will continue for the rest of the year. Even the wettest month, October will not be wet at all. The lack of rain will affect the Central valley as well as the Pacific coast.
Because of the "dry" October it’s predicted that the start of the summer season in Guanacaste will be at least two weeks ahead of schedule. Typically the summer season starts at the beginning of November, but this year it will begin by the mid-October.
The lack of rain is causing all sorts of problems for farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture is estimating that as many as 70 thousand heads of cattle are at serious risk due to the lack of rainfall. Coffee and sugar cane crops are expected to be low in the Central Valley (areas around San Jose, Grecia, Atenas, San Ramon, etc.). Guanacaste province lost most of it’s rice crops already. Read more »
After much drier than normal August, rain is finally back.
According to Rebeca Morera from the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional (IMN), September will bring rains similar to the historical average.
That’s really good news to the country’s agricultural industry. August weather was unusually dry, the result of the "el Niño" phenomenon.
San Jose received 50% less rain than normal, Pavas 60% less and Alajuela 55% less. Read more »
On Wednesday 30 trained mountain rescue workers started the search for a missing U.S. citizen. His name is David Gimelfarb, he’s from Chicago. David failed to return to his hotel after a hiking trip to the national park. His rented car was found inside the park.
The Cruz Roja (Red Cross) has also telecommunications specialists and three cartographers on the search. 2 U.S. military helicopters joined the rescue later in the day. Unfortunately, the rescue team is facing terrible weather conditions with mild winds, but heavy rains.
The Rincon de la Vieja national park is located in northern Costa Rica.The park contains 14 thousand hectares (about 35 thousand acres). It is home to two volcanoes, the Rincon de la Vieja and Santa Maria; 32 rivers and creeks and 6 different volcanic peaks.
Heat Wave To Last Until Monday, The It’s Back To The Torrential Rains
The national weather forecast service from the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional says that the canícula (summer break) will linger for several more days, at least until Tuesday. Read more »
As you already know, the Caribbean part of Costa Rica was severely flooded 3 times in the last 12 months. Many families lost their homes and clean up took months. Some roads are still impassable. Read more »
Juegos Nacionales del Caribe (Caribbean National Sports Competition) 2009 are taking place in the Provincia de Limon this week through Saturday.
While much of the country will be enjoying the stable weather conditions today, the Caribbean side will face the increase in rain over the weekend. The Instituto Meteorologico Nacional issued a special weather forecast for the country. The forecast calls for isolated showers in most of the country with thunderstorms in the southern zone and rain in the early evening in the central and southern Pacific coast.
The institute also mentioned that the low pressure system might cause rain in the mornings.
Strong winds have been blowing over the Central Valley since Friday. Not only that, but high winds brought some very cold air: yesterday temperature dipped to 63 Fahrenheit (17 Celsius). On the other hand there has been only very light rain throughout the Central Valley over the last 2 days.
Rebecca Morera of the Instituto Meteorologico Nacional (IMN) says that by Monday the winds in the Central Valley will die down and the rain will be back again.
Subscribe: 
May 13, 2010 7:07 pm
Weather
Comments (0)
