You may have been wondering why the Christmas holidays were exceptionally wet this year. Well maybe you've never heard of the "La Nina Effect". The National Meteorological Service has explained the weather conditions that led to unusually high rainfall across various parts of the country. Forecaster Crystal Rosalez at the National Meteorological Service explained that some parts in particular experienced just above average rainfall.
Crystal Rosalez, Forecaster - National Meteorological Service
"The contributing factor for this year is that we are under a La Nina effect that normally would produce colder temperatures, especially in the US, and wetter weather, especially over the Central America and the Western Caribbean area. So that was the major contributing factor for this year. And we had a combination of wind flow that converged over us. although it was nothing atypical, right? The ridge would normally support an east to northeasterly flow over the Western Caribbean, northern Central America. And then you have the trade winds. The trade wind is the east or east or east to northeasterly flow over the Caribbean. And what that did was evict or it brought moisture or plume of moisture over our side of the Caribbean. And then the east-northeasterly flow from the ridge, it created like almost a sandwich effect. And that contributed to the wetter rain and Christmas that we did see. In terms of numbers, over the Stan Creek District, saw about four to eight inches between the 24th and the 26th of December, while Toledo saw about two to six inches. Elsewhere around the countryside, we are from one to four inches, right? If we look back at our monthly forecast, our climatic forecast for this month, They were expecting an above normal among suffering fall for most of the country, especially over the south. However, for those three days was way above normal. Again, the contributing factor was the La Nina effect. If we compare this to last year, the surface features were similar, but we were not under a La Nina effect. So the rainfall amongst that we did see for the same three-day period was way below normal, at least for, sorry, it would be normal for a December period. Majority of the country saw below half an inch and there was one isolated area of one inch over Dangriga for the same three-day period in last year. Again, the contributing factor would be the La Nina effect."
"For this year to be specific for those three days, the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, over the North saw one to two inches, central portions of the country saw two to four inches, Stann Creek in particular saw four to eight inches and Toledo got two to six inches."
