Heat prompted by El Niño oppresses Costa Ricans

In this capital city during the last week, thermometers have shot up to 4ºC (roughly 8ºF) above the average 25ºC (77ºF) usual for this time of year, the National Meteorological Institute (NMI) reported yesterday.

San José is located in a valley in the central part of the country and it is one of the places blasted by the heat, along with the neighboring cities of Alajuela and Heredia, where most of the 3.4 million inhabitants of the country live.

``The wind has died down and humidity is moving from the coastal areas to the Central Valley,'' NMI meteorologist Martha Pereira explained yesterday. ``We expect that the current, unusual high temperatures will remain for a few more weeks. This is a consequence of El Niño.''

During the hottest time of the year, the average temperature in the Costa Rican capital city is 25ºC (77ºF), but during the last couple of days it has reached an unprecedented 34ºC (93.2ºF).

In some places records for high temperatures have been shattered. In Alajuela, the 33.6ºC (92.5ºF) experienced recently, surpassed the 32.8ºC (91ºF) recorded in February 1978; in Liberia, Guanacaste, the temperature rose to 38.4ºC (101ºF) this February 1 and broke the 38ºC (100ºF) record set in February 1983.

The heat wave has also brought about an increase in the demand for water in urban centers, forcing the government to ration the distribution of water in order to maintain fair distribution.

``If we do not apply restrictions, a lot of people would see their faucets dry,'' the director of the Costa Rican Water Supply Institution (AyA in Spanish), Ana Gabriela Ross, asserted.

In cities along the Caribbean and the Pacific seaboards, which are traditionally the hottest in the country, the temperature has gone up to 38ºC (100.4ºF).

El Niño made itself evident in this Central American nation last August. It did so with heavy rains in the Caribbean Watershed and the Central Valley, and with a prolonged drought in the areas close to the Pacific Ocean, particularly in the northwestern province of Guanacaste.

Meteorologists have established that the temperature of the waters of the Pacific Ocean off the coast have risen 3.91ºC (roughly 8ºF) above normal during the last two months.

Also, the temperatures currently recorded in the Pacific Watershed are considered the hottest in the last 47 years.