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Contenido-Noticias-20231027

Nov

24

Ending of rainy season

When will the current rainy season end in the country?
Contrary to previous months that have been relatively dry, the rainy season took a significant turn in October, causing normal or even rainier conditions, specifically on the Pacific slope and the Central Valley. This situation is attributed to the exacerbated, anomalous and record warming that the Caribbean Sea has experienced in recent months.
The first graph compares the normal temperature (in black) and the one that has occurred this year (blue) in the Caribbean Sea. Note that starting in September the temperature of 2023 has been 1.5 °C higher than normal, a situation never seen before and that has generated the climatic alterations of these months, which in fact has overshadowed the influence of the El Niño phenomenon which continues active and of strong intensity.
The attached map shows that, as a result of the warming phenomenon in the Caribbean Sea, the end of the rainy season does not occur prematurely as usually happens with the El Niño phenomenon. As has already been said, the difference is that this year El Niño is not acting alone and has had to give way in some months and some regions, such as in Guanacaste and the Central Valley where the dates indicated for the end of the rains are between normal ranges, while in others such as the South Pacific and the western region of the Northern Zone (Guatuso, Upala and Los Chiles) it would be ending earlier than usual.