By Jack Ewing
In the year 1981 I started catching rain in a tin can, measuring it each day with a wooden ruler, and writing down the results. Later I acquired a real rain gauge. In the early 1990s the Instituto Metrológico Nacional de Costa Rica contacted me and asked if we would be willing to manage an official weather station at Hacienda Barú. I readily agreed. The IMN installed a simple weather station that we had to read and record on a daily basis. It measured high and low temperatures and rainfall. A couple of years ago they replaced it with a new digital station that constantly feeds measurements into a computer which then sends
the data off to the IMN.
During the 34 years ending with 2014 the average annual rainfall has been 4470 millimeters (14 feet 8 inches). During that time, the wettest year was 2010 with 9499 millimeters (31 feet, 2 inches). The driest year was 1997 with only 2622 millimeters (8 feet 7 inches). As of this writing at the end of September 2015 we had received only 1923 millimeters (6 feet, 4 inches) of rain. If the current trend continues, we might very well end up with less precipitation than in 1997.
Those of us who live in the Path of the Tapir Biological Corridor and the Costa Ballena should all consider ourselves fortunate to live in a place where even though we are in a drought, everything is still green.
If you would like a copy of the rainfall records for Hacienda Barú send me an email.
