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 Editorials | Environmental | May 2008 
Abundant Rains Will Bless Jalisco, Climate Expert Says
 Guadalajara Reporter
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Northern areas of Mexico may suffer drought this year but the state of Jalisco is set for a good rainy season.
That’s the view of Angel Meulenert Peña, director of the Universidad de Guadalajara Astronomy and Meteorology Institute, who says this year’s rains will begin in earnest around June 10 with three or four consecutive downpours.
On average, he says, about 950-1,000 mm of rain are expected to fall in 2008 (about 1,000 liters per cubic meter), with more than 95 percent of it bathing the state over the next few months.
But how much should we trust Meulenert’s forecast?
“There are a lot of prejudices against meteorology, because people only note our mistakes,” says Meulenert, a Cuban who has resided in Guadalajara for more than two decades. “But modern meteorology is fairly exact. In short-term forecasts up to three days, we get success rates of 80 percent or more.”
Longer-term weather forecasts are based on complex computer simulations processing physics and mathematics formulas to predict atmospheric conditions.
“In this case, we’re basing our prognosis on the fact that the Pacific is neutral,” explains Meulenert. “There is no El Niño, and we have just recently ended a La Niña cycle, so we’re looking at a stable atmosphere with lingering effects from La Niña. Traditionally, La Niña makes for a good rainy season in western Mexico, and a very poor rainy season in northern areas of the country.”
The warm current El Niño and its cold counterpart, La Niña, are global ocean-atmosphere phenomena that cause important fluctuations in surface water temperatures in the Pacific. Aside from being associated with floods, droughts and other weather disturbances, the currents are one of meteorology’s greatest challenges.
“Although they do cycle, the patterns appear irregular,” explains Meulenert. “Events like La Niña are the unknown variable in our computer models, the unforeseen that can throw the prediction askew.”
Guadalajara’s weather is also impacted by its own micro-climate – construction and reduced vegetation makes for a hotter climate and more intense storms, according to the Institute.
For all its scientific trappings, meteorology is not so far from its origins in simple observation.
“The campesino out on the land is an empirical observer – that’s how the sciences developed,” says Meulenert. “He can tell you the most minute details about what the weather will do in his plot of land because he has watched the cycles for years. But he can’t tell you if a hurricane is nearing Puerto Vallarta, because it is out of his zone. We can.”
Despite lingering scepticism about the value of weathermen, Tapatios still turn to meteorology when they have a personal stake or are faced with natural disasters. Just before his interview, Meulenert answers a call from a man who wants to know the forecast for Friday. The caller is planning a party and can’t afford to rent a canopy.
“I told him it wouldn’t rain,” says Meulenert. “Let’s hope I’m right.”
Meulenert does not make predictions lightly. A colleague in Cuba, a chief of weather forecasts, once promised on television that there would be no rain the next day, with dire consequences – it rained. A shoeshine man who lost an entire day’s work on rows of shoes set out to dry in the sun resorted to stalking the hapless weatherman and phoning him with death threats.
“Nobody ever notices when we’re right,” says Meulenert. “But honestly, we usually are.” |
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