The Private Institute for Climate Change Research – ICC, set up a new weather station in San Pedro Yepocapa (Chimaltenango). The acquisition of the equipment was coordinated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE), with funds of CATIE-FCA-AF project and logistical support of Ricardo Celada (Granja Celada).
The so-called “Yepocapa (FCA-CATIE)” is the 30th weather station operated by the ICC in the Guatemalan Pacific basin. These stations create an automatic real-time network, which provides the following meteorological parameters every 15 minutes: rainfall, temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, leaf humidity, wind speed and wind direction. This data can be easily visualised and downloaded here: https://redmet.icc.org.gt.
The location of this weather station will provide key information for risk management as it is close to the pyroclastic materials resulting from Fuego Volcano eruption in June 2018. Monitoring rainfall and establishing thresholds for lahar monitoring can result in risk prevention in communities downstream. Furthermore it is the second highest weather station, located at 1275masl in one of the rainiest areas in the Pacific basin.
Figure 1.New Yepocapa (FCA-CATIE) weather station in San Pedro Yepocapa, Chimaltenango.
