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 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 »
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 »
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.
Veranillo de San Juan (or veranito de San Juan) - little summer of St. John - is a dry weather phenomenon that the Central Valley and Guanacaste experience every year at the end of June – beginning of July. Other parts of Costa Rica do not benefit by this weather condition.
As you know, summer in Costa Rica is from November to April; and the rain season is called winter.
Weather forecasters are saying that this year the “veranito” arrived early and is going to last only a few days.
Heavy rains on Monday and Tuesday flooded a watercourse that damaged a bridge on national Ruta 414 between La Suiza and Grano de Oro. There also were slides reported in the area.
The the national emergency commission is getting its supplies in order for when the heavy rains do hit: the Atlantic hurricane season is just beginning.
Most people know that hurricanes do not hit Costa Rica, but the destructive wind and rain can cause heavy damage here. The U.S. weather forecasters said there is a 70 percent chance of from 9 to 14 major storms and that 4 to 7 could become hurricanes. They are predicting from 1 to 3 severe storms of the category 3, 4 or 5.
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May 13, 2010 7:07 pm
Weather
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