It was a rainy month, but the earthquake in Chile and subsequent trsunami had no consequences for San Pancho. Though a few neighbors … ex-pats and natives alike … got mightily concerned about a big wave hitting us last Saturday. I think the native San Pancho residents reaction was probably right: get the heck out of town. The ex-pat reaction was more like: it ain’t gonna happen, come look at the maps on my computer.
The gut instinct of the San Pancho native of course would more likely have saved your life if the tsunami had arrived. We did our best to keep some current info on the home page of our site, but if you’ve got a computer, you probably have your own favorite satellite cloud loop to watch.
While it isn’t unusual to have rain in the “non-rainy” season, the amount we had this February was most unusual. We had only trace amounts in ‘09 and ‘08, the only history we have for the weather station for the month. This February: 3.32 inches!
The average temperature for the month was 71 degrees, identical with 2009. The high temperature of 85 was 3 degrees higher than a year ago. And who said we aren’t experiencing global warming!
February Temperatures
It’s also interesting to note that we had substantial wind gusts of nearly 30 mph during our rainstorms on the 2nd and the 18th, the highest at the weather station since a 30 mph reading last July. (Yes, the weather station is about 1/2 mile inland so those living on the beach no doubt have experienced stronger wind gusts.)
Just for the record, the San Pancho Weather Station has been up and running since noon on May 25, 2007 … not many days after your humble weather guy arrived here from the highlands to the East. Soon we’ll have three complete years of weather stats to enjoy and relish … and to help refresh our memories of the weather conditions here in paradise.
If you are a stats buff, I urge you to dig around in the complete weather station data base located at the Weather Underground. (Honest … it is not a subversive outfit!)
On a non-weather related note, Daylight Time begins this year on Sunday, April 4 at 2 a.m.
All of us folks in the Municipality of the Bahia de Banderas (including Lo de Marco) will move clocks ahead TWO hours when Daylight time begins this spring. This puts the continguous areas of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco and the Bahia de Banderas, Nayarit, into the same time zone.
Posted in February, rain, temperature, weather summary
Just for the Record – A Storm to Remember
It happened between 9:30 and 10:30 last night.
Nearly 3/4 of an inch of rain in an hour.
A wind gust of 29 mph at 10 pm at the San Pancho Weather Station. Average wind speeds of 5 to 9 mph.
And a rain rate of 7.5 inches per hour (for a brief moment) just after 10 pm.
It adds up to what must be a unique February storm for San Pancho and the Bay of Banderas area. According to some of the area online forums, trees were downed, streets flooded and it appears the rainfall amounts were even greater to the South of San Pancho.
For us in San Francisco, the total rainfall since this wetness all started on February 1, we have had slightly more than 1.5 inches of rain. And the clouds are still with us.
I’ve asked my friend (Turtle) Frank Smith today about the storm. He says that there are records from 1927 that indicate there was a huge storm then in the Bay of Banderas that left more than 100 people dead. Hopefully we won’t have a repeat performance of that this year.
If you have a first-hand report on last night’s event, I encourage you to leave a comment here.
If this is your vacation week in San Pancho, I apologize. This really, really isn’t normal. Honest.
Posted in rain, weather summary | Tags: rain, San Francisco, storm, wind, wind gust
January: Cool and a Big Storm
Here are the dramatic pictures from the storm.
Waterspout - Photo by Bob Umbral, Banderas News
Sea water invades Peñita – Photo: Bill Bell,Jaltemba Sol
The month ended with about a tenth of an inch of rain, recalling December when we had some rain around Christmas and again on the 29th.
The storm brought us cool weather with a monthly low of 52 degrees on the 16th. We had some warm weather too in January reaching a high of 86 on the 23rd. But overall, the variation of daytime highs was slight with temperatures hovering around 80 degrees.
How does that compare to past years? Well, if you thought it was cooler or warmer or wetter this January that in the past, here are the facts from the San Pancho weather station:
Average daytime temperature: 2010 – 72 2009 – 74 2008 – 65!
And for those who proclaim that we ‘never’ have rain in January:
Rainfall: 2010 – .09 inches 2009 - .06 2008 - .12
Another aspect of the big mid-month storm in January is the condition of our beaches. As you can see from this picture, the erosion is significant.
San Pancho Beach - photo: Frank Smith
My thanks to Frank Smith, the Director of Grupo Ecologico de la Costa Verde in San Pancho for this photo from his February Newsletter. Frank also points out this disturbing news:
“A newly released report sights rising sea temperatures and not rising sea levels as the most immediate growing threat to our beaches. Aside from creating hurricanes, rising sea temperatures are causing hyper storm activity in the Pacific, which in turn is causing 43 foot waves to slam into the coast of Oregon and Washington. The report states that maximum wave height has increased by 4.5 feet over the past year, and will continue to rise with sea temperatures. The impact of high waves may destroy marine turtle nests and their beaches in the decades to come.”
If you haven’t subscribed to Grupo Ecolgico’s Newsletter, I suggest you do so at the group’s site.
Thanks again to those who have emailed the San Pancho Weather Station during the month. I always enjoy hearing from fans who check in with us.
On the non-weather scene, life in San Francisco has turned quiet since the holidays. But January is the time for us to take care of some annual civic duties and thanks to my best friend, we’ve paid our taxes (in Sayulita this year) and our water bill (in San Pancho).
The biggest challenge Cele found was at the Post Office in Bucerias where it was time to renew our mailbox. She writes about it here. Now we are ready for the mail to trickle in. Here’s an interesting thing about receiving mail from the States. It seems to arrive at the Bucerias Post Office in a week or less from Boston. But then it takes another couple of weeks to get into our mailbox. But that’s OK.
This is Mexico and we love it!
Posted in January, weather summary | Tags: rain, San Pancho, storm, weather
