{"id":19129,"date":"2020-07-31T20:21:14","date_gmt":"2020-08-01T00:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/?p=19129"},"modified":"2021-01-27T10:33:53","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T13:33:53","slug":"analysis-is-the-megadrought-over-not-yet-but-weve-managed-to-get-past-the-extreme-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/analysis-is-the-megadrought-over-not-yet-but-weve-managed-to-get-past-the-extreme-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis | Is the megadrought over? Not yet, but we\u2019ve managed to get past the extreme drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Rene Garreaud. Edited by: Nicole Tondreau<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019re entering the last month of winter in central Chile, and it has felt particularly \u201cwintry\u201d to many of us, with low temperatures and several moderate and a few intense precipitation events. So, is the megadrought over? Unfortunately, not yet. The central map in Figure 1 shows the cumulative precipitation deficit for several cities in central Chile, from the beginning of the year up to 28 July.\u00a0 There is a 20% to 30% deficit in most urban centres, with the exception of Concepci\u00f3n, which is almost normal (0%), and Curic\u00f3, with -15%. This is in line with the forecast issued by Chile\u2019s meteorological service (Direcci\u00f3n Meteorol\u00f3gica de Chile, DMC) and other centres, which predicted below average rainfall and the continuation of the megadrought. That said, we will need to wait for August and the spring to see how the year ends in terms of precipitation levels.<\/p>\n

The good news is that we are a long way from the extreme drought conditions that we saw in 2019 (and prior to that in 1924, 1968, and 1998). In north-central Chile, for example, on the same date last year, deficits were above 70% (map on the left) and we wrapped up the year at close to 80%. In Santiago, although cumulative precipitation stands at 180mm, or 22% below the average for late July (231mm), it is still three times more than what we had on the same date in 2019. From Chill\u00e1n to Temuco, conditions have been more or less similar for both years.<\/p>\n

Although still below the historic average, the higher cumulative precipitation this winter has led to extensive snow cover in the Andes Mountains \u2013 suggesting better freshwater availability next summer – and more verdant vegetation (according to NDVI satellite measurements) on the coast of the northern part of the Valparaiso Region and in the Coquimbo Region. On the other hand, not all the water reserves have recovered; Laguna Aculeo remains dry even today (image on the right).<\/p>\n

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Figure 1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Rene Garreaud. Edited by: Nicole Tondreau We\u2019re entering the last month of winter in central Chile, and it has felt particularly \u201cwintry\u201d to many of us, with low temperatures and several moderate and a few intense precipitation events. So, is the megadrought over? Unfortunately, not yet. The central map in Figure 1 shows the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,28],"tags":[32,100,145,1032,993],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19129"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19162,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19129\/revisions\/19162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cr2.cl\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}