San Salvador, July 13 (Prensa Latina) According to reports from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Marn), El Salvador faces a combination of factors that can be dangerous and in some cases fatal.
Canícula, that is, little rain, dust from the Sahara that acts like a boiler without an exhaust piston, and a meteorological drought are added from now and probably until August 15 to make the local climate somewhat unbearable and hot.
The period of the so-called Canícula coincides with the presence of dust from the Sahara, which keeps the climate warmer. Rainfall fell by 25 to 30 percent in June, according to hydrological records cited by the minister of Marn Fernando López the day before.
The Environmental Observatory warned that this year’s heatwave could be coupled with a severe meteorological drought.
López made it clear in a press conference the day before that the heat wave is basically a decrease in the total amount of rain. “This phenomenon can be observed and will end around mid-August, that’s what we have,” he specified.
As a precedent for this phenomenon, the minister cited the month of June, when the country was struggling with a drop in rainfall. The average is 311 cubic millimeters of rain, but this year it was only 238, a decrease of between 25 and 30 percent.
This decrease in precipitation is influenced by the dust from the Sahara, which temporarily remains present over the land, and the particles in the air are increasing.
This anomaly can be dangerous when combined with high heat, affecting people with respiratory problems, blood pressure, and other ailments. The dust can reach a concentration of up to 100 micrograms per cubic meter of dust in the next few days.
López warned that there will be a relatively unstable atmosphere this week, leading to a moderate spread of pollutants due to tropical waves, but low rainfall and intense heat will remain.
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