Guatemalan newspaper from May 30, 2007 announcing that the rainy season, invierno, has arrived with force.Invierno occurs between the beginning of May and the end of October.

Zacate Grande, Honduras

This settlement is located on the Pacific coast of Honduras, where temperatures are hot and there is a pronounced dry season, verano, between October and April.

Why is that?

Salt pans in Zacate Grande. Salt water from the Pacific Ocean is pumped onto these surfaces where the water evaporates, leaving salt behind. How does the dry verano contribute to this economic activity?

The climograph on the previous slide was for Zacate Grande. How is it different from La Ceiba’s climograph? What factors might cause the difference?

Port at Zacate Grande, Honduras.

Port at Zacate Grande. Notice how scrubby the vegetation is in the background. The location does not receive enough precipitation to support a tropical rainforest.

Port at Zacate Grande looking southward at El Tigre Volcano, near Amapala. El Tigre was formed by the subduction that occurs along Middle America’s Pacific coast.

El Tigre is picturesque. Maybe that’s why Honduras chose to put it on its 2 Lempira bills.

Amapala is a town at the base of El Tigre. Hotel Pension International is a wonderful place. Just be sure to ask for 3 mosquito coils.

Black volcanic sands on a beach at Amapala.

El Tigre

Amapala

Subduction

This map shows how rugged The topography of Middle America is.

This map shows the many volcanoes in the region and how most of the region is within major earthquake zones.

Those volcanoes and earthquakes result from two zones of subduction: one on the Pacific side of Central America, the other in the eastern Caribbean.

Volcan Santa MariaVolcan Santa Maria in western Guatemala last erupted in 1902.

Full service?

On our way to western Guatemala we observed how security precautionsare different in Central America.

Volcan de Fuego

West of Antigua, Guatemala.

Volcan de Agua, viewed from the roof of the Iglesia del Cerro del Carmen in Guatemala City.

My own private cop who accompanied me on my hike up Volcan de Agua

Volcan Telica, on

Nicaragua’s Pacific side.

Volcan Casita on Nicaragua’s Pacific side, which filled up with rainwater during Hurricane Mitch, which occurred at the end of invierno in 1998 and later caused a massive landslide.

Mudflow scar

Monument to the lives lost in the landslide.

Volcan Momotombo, in Lake Nicaragua.

Sutter Buttes? Nope. Volcan Momotombo from the north during verano. Rice growing in the foreground.

Somewhere on the Pacific slope of Central America.

This map shows the subduction zone in the eastern Caribbean. Subduction has created volcanic islands.

Black triangles represent volcanoes caused by subduction which occurs along dashed line.

Honduras weather map. Temperatures are in Celsius, but you can see the influence of elevation. Highest temperatues on coast. Cooler in the mountainous interior.

Weather map from Panama newspaper. Note that there is little difference in temperatures. That is because there is little elevational difference, because of a lack of large, massive volcanoes.

January 4th in Panama. Still almost a 12-hr day.

Panama hopes to become a Mecca for Baby Boomers.