Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - December 2022 / Year End Review

During December, visits to this blog were received from the following 10 countries:

From the time I started to keep track, the total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 135. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions (e.g. Puerto Rico).

During the year, visits were recorded from 44 identifiable countries and non-independent jurisdictions.

As of 2022 year end, the total number of visits to this blog approached 50,000 according to a widget called RevolverMaps. In the right hand sidebar of my current blog the number indicates 25000+ views. However, this number is for the period from Sep. 29, 2016 to date and does not include 24000 views during the period from Nov. 13, 2012 to Sep 29, 2016: see my blog post on Oct. 4, 2016. The following map projection indicates by red dots places from where visits have been received since Sep. 29, 2016:

The right hand sidebar also includes a widget indicating that the "TOTAL PAGEVIEWS" is approaching 250,000. This widget is independent of RevolverMaps and the page count is current from the inception of the blog to date.

Not unrelated to my blog, the YouTube video I posted on Aug. 7,  2017 with regard to landing at the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) continues to attract interest. As indicated in the following chart**, the total number of views is over 9700 and the average is over 140 views per month:

Some of the views have undoubtedly been motivated by earlier blog posts which included a link to the video. I expect that many are from persons who have had their "Eyes on Costa Rica" but who were oblivious and remain oblivious to the existence of my blog.

** Note: While the horizontal x-axis distance between successive data points in the chart is uniform, the number of months between each pair of data points is in fact quite irregular. For example, the first data point after the landing date was recorded about 7 months after the landing date; the last data point (Dec. 31, 2022) was recorded about 1 month after the second last data point.

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The following is a summary of the weather for December in the area where we live:

December 2022 was an extremely dry month. Unlike previous Decembers where we recorded at least some rain, nothing was recorded in December 2022. There were dribbles on a couple of days. But, our rain guage is a wireless system (Acurite Model 00899) with a remote collector and a digital display. If the rainfall on any given day fails to reach at least 0.01 in. (0.25 mm), then the record from Acurite for that day is "0.00".
 
That said, the following chart indicates the monthly pattern of rainfall in 2022 in the area where we now live ("San Roque de Grecia" as distinct from "San Roque" per se or any other "San Roque de ..." which you might find in Costa Rica). This pattern is compared to patterns in Hacienda El Paseo where we previously lived in 2020, 2021 and the early dry season part of 2022:

• Note: The data points for 2020, 2021 and up to and including March 2022 are exclusively from when we lived in Hacienda El Paseo. The data point for April 2022 combines rainfall recordings made at Hacienda El Paseo up to and including April 11 plus those made during the remainder of the month at San Roque de Grecia. All subsequent data points are exclusively from San Roque de Grecia where we now live.

Despite some overlap in early 2022, it seems clear that San Roque de Grecia is susceptible to more annual rainfall than Hacienda El Paseo. This is a good example of microclimates at work in Costa Rica. As the crow flies, the two locations are less than 5 miles (8 km) apart. However, San Roque de Grecia is located on the western slope of the eastern mountain range ("sierra") of Costa Rica's Central Valley - and at an altitude significantly higher than that of Hacienda El Paseo.

As for temperatures, average daytime lows and highs in San Roque de Grecia in 2022 were generally a bit lower than average lows and highs in 2020 and 2021 in Hacienda El Paseo.  Again, this can be attributed to the fact that we are now living at a higher altitude.

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Covid-19 Updates Discontinued

I have decided to discontinue updates comparing Covid-19 data for Costa Rica to that in Canada and the United States. The reason is that on January 1, 2023, the data provided by the Worldometer link which I previously relied upon was unchanged from that data on December 3, 2022 - suggesting that Worldometer is no longer maintaining its Covid-19 database.

Click on images to enlarge.