The rains of february 2023

After three years without precipitations, they came back to smash the same places where a similar episode happened more than a decade ago.

 

 

A heavy rain falling over Sapillica Town, Upper Chipillico Valley, Ayabaca Province, on February 21^st, 2023. However, just 0.8 inches of rain fell that day. (Footage provided by El Tambograndino Noticias)

 

The most Piura Department, Peru, had moderate to heavy rains between 19^th and 25^th of February, 2023, feeling stronger between 22^nd and 23^rd. It was not a surprising episode. Peru’s National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology (Senamhyi, as in Spanish)issued such warnings since the 19^th by tagging orange alertfor coast and highlands of Northern Peru.

 

Based upon satellite reports consulted by FACTORTIERRA and eyewitnesses on the field, the precipitations smashed mostly on Provinces ayabaca, Huancabamba, and Morropón, the whole crossed by the Andean Range, which had receiving rains intermitentely since beginning-February 2023.

 

The most showers fell over both nascents of Quiroz River as well as Chipillico River. Both feed San Lorenzo Reservoir, the second largest in Piura Department. At the same time, both are tributaries of Chira River, the department’s most abundant. Rains also fell over Upper Piura Valley, feeding Piura River.

 

It came from the east

As Senamhi explained, the rains falling the last week of February 2023 were caused by a transfer from Amazon Basin pulled by trade winds. As the Andes in Piura don’t raise over 13,200 feet altitude, the pass of those humidity masses does easily.

 

When those ones collided against a hot humidity mass rising from the Pacific Ocean in front of Provinces Paita and Talara, a condensation effect happened. In other words, the water steam concentrated in drops becoming heavier each time, then precipitated as rain. In fact, the sea surface temperature has been around 75ºF, that stimulated the evaporation, or the water in liquid state turning a gas.

 

San Pedro, a town to the northeast of Chulucanas City, had 5 inches of rain on February 23^rd, 2023, turning in the record-breaker across the department in that whole month.

 

Comparing, in February 2017, el Partidor, Las Lomas District, had almost 10 inches of rain. Weeks later, on March 25^th, 13 inches of rain fell over Districts Yamango, Morropón, and Buenos Aires, Morropón Province, causing an overload in Piura River that, powered by the creeks of Tambograndé District, flooded the cities of Piura and Castilla, two days later. It was about an El Niño event.

 

A sequence of the San Francisco Creek’s overload seen from Malingas, in Tambograndé District, the last week of February 2023. Heavy rains fallen over this territory and the nearby Sapillica District raised the flow isolating more than 20,000 people. (Photographs by Norka Farías and Milton García, distributed by FACTORTIERRA)

 

History repeated

Tambograndé became again another critic point of rains in February 2023. San Francisco Creekk overloaded again as much as it broke the road between the cities of Tambograndé and Chulucanas since February 24^th – in practical terms, Malingas Community got isolated for four days. San Francisco is a natural spillway of San Lorenzo Reservoir and a tributary of Piura River.

 

At the moment, Piura Metropolitan Area was not in risk. The load of the river just rose 35 cubic meters per second, 1% of the load that flooded both banks in that sector on March 27^th, 2017.

 

Another relevant fact is Piura Department is experiencing heavy rains after three years of drought, mainly at the coast due to La Niña phenomenon – Pacific Ocean water gets colder, that inhibits evaporation, brings down the warm temperatures across the lowlands, creates a kind of thermal barrier blocking the Amazonian transfer. In consequence, rains only fell at the highlands.

 

11 years before

A similar phenomenon happened in February 2012, as FACTORTIERRA registered. Southern spring was unusually cold due to a La Niña event. When it seems the summer was going to be temperate, Pacific Ocean water started to warm causing rains at Peruvian Southern those were displacing fastly to the north of the nation. Between both episodes, 11 years went by.

 

Let’s add in 2012, heavy rains also fell over Lanconés District. The territory bounds with ecuador and contains Poechos Reservoir, the largest of Piura and Peru. That district also had heavy rains during February 2023. Check here what happened in 2012.

 

Rewinding FACTORTIERRA Archives, a similar rainy period happened in 2001… 11 years before. Will it happen again? Probably. In other 11 years? We hope to meet us to prove it in 2034. Check out actual weather conditions and forecasts.

 

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