Weather from the Savanna
As you might imagine, weather information is pretty limited here. The closest official weather station to us is in David, the third largest city in Panama. It is near the coast, with a wide mangrove area between the city and the Pacific Ocean. Conditions there are rather different from what they are here on the Pacific Slope of Volcan Baru at 750 m (2,640 ft).
In January we set up a WeatherHawk station on our site, and after running it for some time, I feel it’s fair to go public with the data. The website is Potrerillos Arriba Weather, and current weather conditions are shown at Today’s Weather.
As of today we began broadcasting to Weather Underground, as well. The weather widget in the right-hand column points to our data. In addition, for this special announcement, I decided to include the gaudiest weather icon I could find, just for this particular post.
Enjoy!
PS – I forgot. This post is actually not an April Fools’ Day joke, though you might think so, since that’s about the only thing going around today.
This is so cool and I’m sure will be very useful! I’m always looking for more detailed weather records closer to my research sites – it’s too bad the people living there haven’t set up a weather station like you!
Thanks, Sarcozona. I’m really happy with our station and tend to look at the data much more often than necessary!
As far as the paucity of weather stations – well, it’s understandable. Despite the Canal, Panama is a third-world country and hardly anyone can afford a weather station. A number of gringos have moved here within the past 10 or so years (including yours truly), however, and some of them are installing stations in our general area. We will eventually be able to get a little bit of a grip on the microclimates on this side of the mountain.