As is typical around the new moon, tides will be higher than usual starting tomorrow and lasting until around Wednesday of next week on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of Costa Rica, detailed a report by Omar G. Lizano Rodríguez, coordinator of the Oceanographic Information Module (MIO, its initials in Spanish) at the University of  Costa Rica's Center for Research in Marine Sciences and Lim...

During a visit to Costa Rica, Minister Barbara Hendricks of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Construction and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) of the Federal Republic of Germany, announced support in the amount of 15 million Euros to aid Costa Rica work on mitigation and adaptation to climate change, reported the Costa Rican government. During a visit that began on Friday 16 ...

Researchers from Costa Rica's Tropical Agronomic Research and Teaching Center and the non-profit Conservation International published findings on the impact of climate change in Latin America. Climatic Change magazine's special edition in March, Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystems, Agriculture and Smallholder Farmers in Central America, detailed the negative impacts of climate change in Centra...

The month of May in Costa Rica closed with a surplus of rainfall, exceeding the predictions of the National Meteorology Institute, the number of lighting strikes doubled the number of 2016. In the past weeks the country has registered seven tropical waves which generated heavy rainfall and thunder storms that caused floods and landslides in different areas of the country. May registered a reco...

Whereas last month, meteorologists saw a possible El Niño effect slowing down the formation of storms in the Atlantic-Caribbean region, they now say the probable lack of development of the phenomenon may bring on a heavier than usual hurricane season. Last year brought the unusual late season hurricane - Otto - the first to touch land in Costa Rica in recorded history. For the Atlantic, 2016...

Costa Rica and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have agreed to develop a joint groundwater exploration and evaluation project to improve resource management and minimize the impact of climate change, reported the Spanish news agency EFE last week. The Costa Rican Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE) said in a press release that the Geological Survey expert, Saud Amer, who carried o...

The 2017 hurricane season is already here with the arrival of Tropical Depression One-E which has been forming off Costa Rica's Pacific coast for the last couple of days, and is now gathering momentum as it heads in a northwesterly direction away from Costa Rica. If it becomes a tropical storm over the next day or two, as predicted, it will be named Adrian. The system is now moving north - n...

This week's weather forecast, includes the formation of a tropical cyclone in the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica A large but disorganized low pressure system in the Pacific Ocean near the country has been generating a lot of instability, bringing heavy afternoon and evening rains to much of the country. This weather system will likely become organized in the coming days, predict Costa Rican m...

Nearly half a million dollars will go into the first stage of post-Hurricane-Otto environmental clean-up, announced the Costa Rican President’s office this week. Work began this week in the Upala region. The C253 million job of cleaning and channeling the Zapote River as it wends in and around the communities of Yolillal, San Isidro, San Judas, El Carmen and Upala center, is overseen by the Min...

The Costa Rican Red Cross together with the American Red Cross met last week with residents in Guanacaste to follow up on a climate change mitigation project, reported the Red Cross in a news bulletin. Community leaders from the coastal towns of Corralillos and La Guinea in the district of Filadelfia, Guanacaste province discussed their progress and advances on a project called "Actions to Redu...

With hundreds of vacationers hitting the beaches during the weeklong Easter break in Costa Rica, many got a jolt this morning just after 6 a.m. when a 4.2 magnitude quake struck near Playa Hermosa in northern Guanacaste on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, said the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory (Ovsicori) at the Costa Rican National University. The 6:08 a.m. tremor was registered at a ...

El Salvador was badly shaken by a 5.1 earthquake just before 6 p.m. yesterday, Monday, April 10. The quake was the strongest in a series of hundreds tremors that began Sunday and lasted until this morning, reported the Salvadoran Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MARN). Due to the proximity of the “seismic swarm” to the San Salvador metropolitan area, authorities decided to moni...

Experts say 2017 will bring a below-normal hurricane season, as a potential El Niño may limit the development of storms. Last season spawned 15 named storms, seven of which were hurricanes. The 2017 season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, follows the deadliest in over 10 years for the Atlantic basin. Last year's was also the costliest Atlantic hurricane season since 2012, and Costa Rica saw ...

A heat wave is scorching a good portion of Central America, raising temperatures above 40 C (104 F) in some areas and spurring authorities to issue warnings of even higher readings. In Costa Rica, people are complaining about the heat on the social networks, despite the fact that high temperatures are normal at this time of year and the current temperatures are similar to in other years. In ...

An 5.6 magnitude earthquake registered at 5:54 p.m. in Panama today, Sunday, April 2, was felt strongly in many parts of Costa Rica, according to hundreds of local reports posted on the Ovsicori-UNA Facebook page. The National University's Seismology and Volcanology Observatory (Ovsicori) reported the event as having an epicenter 6.1 km northeast of Cerro Punta in Panama (the exact coordinates ...

Costa Rica is known to have excellent weather conditions, but particularly during the months of March and April the temperatures tend to go up and the radiation is higher. Experts from the National Meteorological Institute (IMN) warned that starting this week and through the second week of April Costa Rica will be exposed to dangerous levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation as the sun rays hit per...

Emergency management chief Rogelio Flores said Tuesday that "thousands of people took part" in the first national multiple-threat drill of the year in Nicaragua. The evacuation and reaction of citizens faced with extreme natural phenomena that could turn into disasters, such as an earthquake, a tsunami, the eruption of a volcano or the blast of a hurricane, were the focus of the simulation, acc...

Los Angeles, Feb. 13 — Emergency repair work on the damage to the Oroville dam in Northern California, and the storms that in the coming days could aggravate the situation are keeping the roughly 200,000 people who have been evacuated due to flooding danger on tenterhooks. Authorities Monday held a press conference in Oroville, located about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of San Francisco...

By Wendy Anders Along with gallo pinto and bad traffic, ash from the Turrialba Volcano has become a mainstay of life in many parts of San José's metropolitan area. This morning, the colossus was at it again, spewing moderate columns of ash that were immediately whisked off my the strong winds passing over most of the country this week, said the National University's Volcanology and Seismolog...

By Wendy Anders The National Meteorological Institute (IMN, in Spanish) said gusts of up to 85 kmh (more than 50 mph) would be affecting several areas of the country including San José this week. Mountainous areas are likely to experience the brunt of the gales, said scientists, who said that Monday’s highest winds were registered in Escazú, Ciudad Colón, and mountainous areas of the norther...

By Wendy Anders The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will donate $10 million (more than ₡5.5 billion colones) for the repair and restoration of aqueducts in communities destroyed by the passage of Hurricane Otto, said the Costa Rican government. This was one of the main tangible outcomes of a recent official Costa Rican delegation, the country’s first, to the Middle East. In addition to this vi...

Atlanta, Jan. 22 — Storms lashing the southern United States have killed 11 people in the state of Georgia, local authorities reported Sunday. Emergency management authorities said that after severe storms hit the southern part of the state, 11 people have been confirmed dead and 23 more injured. Authorities, who early in the day issued tornado warnings for towns in southern Georgia, said th...

Geneva, Jan. 18 — Last year was the hottest on record, with an average temperature 1.1 degrees Centigrade (2 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-industrial times, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday. The WMO said it combined data from NASA, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the British Meteorological Office and the European Centre for Medi...

Guatemala, Jan. 9 — The discovery of three bodies on the slopes of Guatemala's Acatenango Volcano on Monday raised to six the number of hikers who died there, possibly of hypothermia caused by the cold front that has seized the country. The head of the Conred emergency management office, Sergio Cabañas, confirmed that the three lifeless bodies were found Monday on the volcano, located between t...

By Wendy Anders A constant eruption of ash from Costa Rica's Turrialba Volcano, located east of the San José greater metropolitan area, has emergency officials closely monitoring the colossus. Yesterday, the Central Valley, home to the country's capital San José, was placed on green alert, the lowest level alert, due to the steady ash falling in densely populated areas near the volcano, said...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s Turrialba Volcano erupted at 5:50 a.m. today, Wednesday, January 4, sending a large plume of ash and gas westward as strong gusts of wind race out of the east across the country. Dozens of flights from mid-morning onward have been cancelled or delayed, but only on certain airlines, and the capital’s Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) is open and function...

By Wendy Anders During 2016, the seismographic network of the Volcanology and Seismology Research Institute at the Costa Rican National University (Ovsicori-UNA) recorded about 10 thousand earthquakes worldwide. In Costa Rica, just over 5,500 events were identified, of which 162 were reported as being felt by the population, said a report by Esteban J. Chaves, Floribeth Vega and Marino Prott...

By Wendy Anders Last night at 10:22 p.m., scientists monitoring the Turrialba Volcano's latest eruption were stunned to see a brilliant streak crossing Costa Rica's skies at the same moment. The phenomenon was captured by the National University's Volcanology and Seismology Research Institute (Ovsicori-UNA) cameras and edited by scientist Javier Pacheco, and published on the Repretel TV stat...

When you hear about the wonders Costa Rica has to offer, one of the aspects that always comes up is the wonderful weather the country has; this is the reason many choose it as a vacation escape, especially those that live in areas of very cold winters, and this is also the reason many decide to move to Costa Rica. But what is so wonderful about the weather in Costa Rica? Costa Rica has only ...

By Wendy Anders Upala Costa Rica after Hurricane Otto Rains over the past two days in northern Costa Rica are causing flooding in the same low-lying rural areas that were severely affected by Hurricane Otto less than a month ago, reported the National Meteorological Institute (IMN) yesterday morning. At least five families were evacuated from Upala yesterday morning due to flooding of th...

By Wendy Anders Housing Minister Rosendo Pujol surveys damages to housing in the wake of Hurricane Otto, source Mivah. A total of 204 families need new homes after Hurricane Otto passed through the country in November. Preliminary data from the Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements (Mivah) confirmed that these houses are distributed throughout the areas affected by the extreme weather t...

By Wendy Anders Increased rainfall caused by the mid-November cold front followed by Hurricane Otto in late November resulted in large losses for Costa Rica’s coffee producers in the regions of Coto Brus and Perez Zeledon. To date, Coto Brus and part of Buenos Aires, in Costa Rica’s extreme south, have experienced a loss of up to 25 percent this year’s crop, or an estimated 50,000 bushels, a...

Washington, Dec 8 — A magnitude-6.5 earthquake rattled California's northern coast on Thursday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. 7.7 earthquake in the Solomon Islands, Thursday, Dec. 8, source Facebook. There have been no reports thus far of casualties or significant material damage. The temblor occurred at 6:49 am (1449 GMT) off the coast, with its epicenter located 160 k...

By Wendy Anders A view of Turrialba Volcano's craters by scientist Javier Francisco Pacheco, courtesy of Ovsicori-UNA. After a 5-day period of calm, Cartago’s Turrialba Volcano rumbled back into action yesterday, said scientists at the National University’s Seismology and Volcanology Research Institute (Ovsicori-UNA). This most recent “passive phase” started at 7:00 a.m. yesterday with e...

By Wendy Anders The Ministry of Health is tracking the situation of people in the country's shelters after Hurricane Otto. Saturday, the National Emergency Commission (CNE, in Spanish) lifted all emergency weather-related alerts. The announcement came just in time for a new spate of rain to set in. The National Meteorological Institute (INM, in Spanish) said the rains that pelted the cen...

By Wendy Anders Damages reported near the epicenter of this afternoon's Cartago quakes, photo CRHoy.com. Lately there seems to be no end to the variety and amount of natural phenomena on display here in Tiquicia. Starting at 3:50 this afternoon, a 4.6 magnitude quake was registered 45 kms south of Dominical on the south Pacific at a depth of 10 kms, said the National Seismology and Volca...

By Wendy Anders A Costa Rican rainforest. After Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change last month, Environment Minister Edgar Gutierrez said that, despite being a small country, “Costa Rica showed the world that it has the courage to take bold and timely decisions to work for a sustainable development,” as reported in the World Politics Review. I...

By Wendy Anders Police distribute aid in Upala, photo Public Security Ministry. In response for calls for help from families affected by Hurricane Otto in Upala, Saturday night and Sunday, hundreds of public officials went door-to-door with food rations, reported the Public Security Ministry yesterday. Police officers, judicial police, migration police and fireman all joined together for...

By Wendy Anders A map of the emergency status of Costa Rica's regions as of late Saturday, source National Emergency Commission. A total of 22 communities in southern Costa Rica are virtually unreachable by road following the passage of Hurricane Otto, the head of operations of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), Walter Fonseca, reported yesterday. "These are eight communities in th...

The recovered body of a one year and eight months old girl in Bijagua, Upala elevated the number of deaths as a consequence of Hurricane Otto in Costa Rica to ten. The house where the toddler, Bianca Pichardo, and her family lived was destroyed last Thursday and in the event her mother also died, her body was found on Friday and buried today, her father was barely able to make it out, while the...