Damaging weather in Costa Rica

[Jeff in St Pete]

Tropical Storm Tomas finally moved away after giving us rain for more than a week. Entire towns along the Pacific Coast were flooded, the road through Manuel Antonio collapsed and is in danger of sliding down the mountain, and just the other night a landslide in Escazu (suburb of San Jose) killed more than 20 people. The landslide happened less than a mile from where I am currently staying in Escazu. All the roads to the Pacific Coast were closed and a National Emergency was declared.

Things are starting to return to normal, but it will be a long time before the damage is cleaned up and fixed. Here are a few photos of the road in Manuel Antonio that people emailed to me. There's only one paved road in and out of Manuel Antonio and this is it...

[ariscott]

How much water was going through there, Jeff? It has to be quite a bit to undermine the road....

Regards, Ari

[paulgila]

sorry to hear about the loss of life.

[Jeff in St Pete]

Ari, between Monday and Friday of last week the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area received 49.5 inches (1257 mm) of rain. So far for 2010 we are at 275 inches (6985 mm) and the rainy season is not over yet.

Paul, the photos and stories on the news have been awful.

[paulgila]

i am starting to think i am a jinx.

had been thinking about going to java,too,& look what happened there.

[BS Man about Palms]

OY!!

[Mark_NoVA]

49.5 inches?!? That's incomprehensible!

I remember there was a fair amount of traffic on that one road, that sounds like it will be a major problem. Hope you'll be able to get home OK. And down that steep driveway too.

  On 11/8/2010 at 10:39 PM, Jeff in Costa Rica said:

Ari, between Monday and Friday of last week the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area received 49.5 inches (1257 mm) of rain. So far for 2010 we are at 275 inches (6985 mm) and the rainy season is not over yet.

Paul, the photos and stories on the news have been awful.

[Jeff in St Pete]

  On 11/9/2010 at 3:23 AM, Mark_NoVA said:

49.5 inches?!? That's incomprehensible!

I remember there was a fair amount of traffic on that one road, that sounds like it will be a major problem. Hope you'll be able to get home OK. And down that steep driveway too.

Mark, from what I understand, the "old road to Manuel Antonio" is open - but it is a dirt road which got eroded even more from all the recent rain. I hear it's open to one way traffic at a time and it's barely passable. I guess I will find out when I get home. Fernando emailed me photos of a few small landslides near the Bali House. We will have to build more of those rock walls to prevent further slides.

Paul, everthing should be pretty well cleaned up by the time you arrive. Let's just hope we don't have a major earthquake in the meantime...

[ariscott]

It is not a cyclone though, Jeff?? It is pretty amazing to have that much water in a week. The only thing that can dump that much water here is a cyclone... I hope everything would be back to normal soon.

Regards, Ari

[Moose]

In the Atlantic and Caribbean cyclones are called Hurricanes. You don't have an official Hurricane until you get sustained winds of 73 MPH. A tropical storm is a large weather system with sustained winds below 72 MPH. People often vocus on the wind velocity when it is the massive amounts of rain that usually causes the tradgic events.

[ariscott]

yes... and in the Philippines it is called typhoon. I am quite familiar with those phenomena. We have cyclones threat in Darwin every year and I am very aware of the consequences, wind & rain wise. I am sorry, if I am lack in technicality. I have been through 2 of them so far - one is more severe than other.

And no... that wind also causes damage. You should see what happened to the bush around Jabiru when cyclone Monica hit (cat 5 - as big as Larry, if you not bigger)..

Regards, Ari

Edited November 9, 2010 by ariscott

[Mark_NoVA]

If you bring a volcanic eruption we are going to be really pissed at you.

  On 11/8/2010 at 11:11 PM, pohonkelapa said:

i am starting to think i am a jinx.

had been thinking about going to java,too,& look what happened there.

[paulgila]

i will be,too.

[Jeff in St Pete]

  On 11/9/2010 at 4:52 AM, ariscott said:

It is not a cyclone though, Jeff?? It is pretty amazing to have that much water in a week. The only thing that can dump that much water here is a cyclone... I hope everything would be back to normal soon.

Regards, Ari

Ari, It started out as a tropical storm and then gained strength and became a category 2 hurricane when it moved north and passed Haiti. The storm was originally located in the southern Caribbean and the outer bands kept dumping rain on us. It stalled there for a while and it felt like the rain would never stop. We didn't get any wind damage since the storm never got close enough to us.

[Al in Kona]

  On 11/9/2010 at 5:56 PM, Jeff in Costa Rica said:

  On 11/9/2010 at 4:52 AM, ariscott said:

It is not a cyclone though, Jeff?? It is pretty amazing to have that much water in a week. The only thing that can dump that much water here is a cyclone... I hope everything would be back to normal soon.

Regards, Ari

Ari, It started out as a tropical storm and then gained strength and became a category 2 hurricane when it moved north and passed Haiti. The storm was originally located in the southern Caribbean and the outer bands kept dumping rain on us. It stalled there for a while and it felt like the rain would never stop. We didn't get any wind damage since the storm never got close enough to us.

Wow Jeff, that's an incredible amount of rain! I know Costa Rica can get low pressure tropical storms but aren't you just a little too far south to be affected by hurricanes? I read somewhere that Panama and Costa Rica don't experience hurricanes but just go north a bit to Nicaragua and Honduras and they do experience them. Well, thank God no hurricane wind problems with your copious amount of rain!

[ariscott]

Yes... that much rain & wind, all the trees will topple next... Yes, I think you are too close to the equator to be affected by hurricanes. It is abit like us & Indonesia...

Regards, Ari

[Jeff in St Pete]

Hi Al, You may have read that Panama (and parts of Costa Rica) don't receive direct hits by hurricanes, but we can still be affected by them in the form of rain. This one stalled in the southern Caribbean and dumped a ton of rain on us before moving away.

[amazondk]

Jeff,

I am sorry to hear about the disaster. That is a lot of water. As to hurricanes I think normally within 10 degrees of the equator hurricanes do not strike. I read that somewhere and I am not sure if it was 5 degrees or 10 degrees. Here is some pretty complete information on these tropical storms I found while looking for this, Hurricanes

I hope things get back to normal soon Jeff.

dk

[ariscott]

I did hear that, Don.... I can't remember what latitude though. We are 12deg south and we get plenty of cyclones.

Jeff,

Most cyclone develop closer to the equator and then they travel south to us. So, I would suspect, some parts of Indonesia & PNQ would be getting a lot of rain from them too. Well, at least, you don't get the wind as well. The damage will be more substantial then.

Regards, Ari

[gsytch]

Out tropical storms often give us much more rain, because they are less organized and tend to move slower. That is why Floridians often say a "nice" tropical storm would fix things. The winds are never the issue in T.S....even weak hurricanes will do. As they get organized, they often get smaller and wrapped up so the rainfall totals can get less unless they come ashore and stall. Now, let us have some rainfall!