CENTRAL AMERICAN RAINFALL. 
BY 
Mark Walrod Harrington. 
[Read before the Society March 2, 1895.] 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
1. The observations. 1 
2. General geographic conditions. 3 
3. The annual rainfall. 6 
4. Distribution through the year. 11 
5. Distribution through the day at San Jose, Costa Rica. 17 
6. Yariations of rainfall. 19 
7. Tables. 22 
8. Plates. .facing 30 
1. The Observations .—The best series of rainfall observa¬ 
tions in Central America is that taken at San Jose, Costa Rica. 
The series is a long one, and in its last three years the ob¬ 
servations were taken with the outfit and under the condi¬ 
tions and requirements for a station of the first order, as 
agreed upon by the international committee representing 
the chief government weather services. This means that 
the record of the principal elements is made automatically, 
and also that it is published in extenso. The observatory is 
conducted by Professor Enrique Pittier. The next best 
series of rainfall observations is that of Dr. Earl Flint at 
Rivas, on the western shore of Lake Nicaragua. Here we 
have an uninterrupted series for fifteen years taken by the 
same observer, and this observer an educated physician who 
takes especial interest in problems of rainfall. Next to these 
come the observations made along the course of the Panama 
1—Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 13. 
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