Rainfall at El Verde Field Station, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico since 1975

Rainfall at El Verde Field Station is measured manually using a rain collector placed on the station roof. The collector is mostly open, but some degree of interference from tall trees around the station is possible. A technician measures rainfall daily during workdays. For weekends and holidays, the amount of precipitation is measured on the next working day and divided equally among the days since the last reading. Rainfall has been measured at the El Verde Field Station since 1964. McDowell and Estrada-Pinto, 1988 presents a description of the collection procedures, raw data from 1964 to 1986, and some summary statistics for this period of record. Precipitation for this period showed some seasonality in monthly means, with a peak in May. Monthly averages for the period of 1975 to current chart can be found at this site. The highest values for the monthly averages for the period of 1975 to 2000 are from August to December with a low in October and November the highest. In this period the highest amount of total annual rainfall was in 1998 with 5293.61 mm and the minimum in 1994 with 1402.87 mm. Support for this work was provided by grants BSR-8811902, DEB-9411973, DEB-9705814 , DEB-0080538, DEB-0218039 , DEB-0620910 , DEB-1239764, DEB-1546686, and DEB-1831952 from the National Science Foundation to the University of Puerto Rico as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Additional support provided by the University of Puerto Rico and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service.