Start of the Rainy Season
ViaNica.com | May 18, 2007
Last night (May 17th), a torrential rain accompanied by a strong electrical storm unloaded on the region of Managua. According to professor Milagros Castro, director of Synoptic and Aeronautical Meteorology of the INETER, the phenomenon is the waiting room of the beginning of the rainy period.Other sporadic rains already have registered during this week in different zones from the Pacific and the south of the National territory.
Although the electrical storm on Managua has caused astonishment in some inhabitants, due to the frequence of lightning and thunders, and to the extension of the same one (the rainy and electrical storm lasted almost one hour), this one was considered quite normal for the tropical region by the experts of INETER. Castro indicated that the historical registries shows that there has been stronger electrical storms than the one of last night.
According to INETER, for the first months of the rainy season (May to July), there are high probabilities that the rains behave below the normal, mainly in the regions of the North, Center and East of the Pacific. It is hoped that rains of May and June have a quite irregular distribution.
It is important to emphasize that a prognosis established by Philip J. Klotzbach and W. Gray of the University of Colorado (U.S.A.) anticipates the possibility of a greater number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. The season of hurricanes in that region extends of June to November.
African Dust
The national experts have been investigating an enormous dust cloud formed in the African Sahara, that moves in the direction to Centro América. This cloud is supposed to be affecting the East of Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and Guatemala, mainly, during three days, from today to Sunday.
INETER explains that its last analysis shows that "the wind currents of the Southeastern of the Caribbean Sea are moving the dust cloud to the northwest, moving it away from Centro America”. Also, this cloud will cause rains during the weekend, which would diminish the consequences of the dust particles which could arrive to the country.
This african dust cloud, is produced by the movement of the sand stoms that are usual in the North part of this continent, by the Atlantic Ocean, wich number of them has increased in the last ten years due to deforestation. This phenomenon could carry diseases and health problems to the exposed population.
Although there is a posibility that this cloud doesn´t get Nicaragua, it is known that the most affected regions would be Caribbean zone (RAAN and RAAS).
Photo courtesy of Guus Hoekman