Weather

The Puyango Petrified Forest weather is conditioned by the incidence of orographical and meteorological factors. Among the first ones, there are the fluctuations that are produced depend on the geographic location, the topography, the kind of vegetal covering (shrub vegetation characteristic of semi-deserts) and the year’s season. According to their influence level several climatic variables have been characterized in the studying region.

From the meteorological point of view the studying is located in the equatorial band; this situation influences the annual moving of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) of the Thermic Ecuador, the Southern Watercourse, etc.

The geographic sector situated in the Project zone is located in the sides of the Andean occidental range to the west; this characteristic is probably one of the preponderant facts for the sector determination.

The winds that bring the humid air masses coming from the Pacific Ocean take these along against the range foothills in west-east direction resulting in major-intensity precipitations over higher places, in this case Marcabeli and Alamor’s mountains.

The humid air masses that move from the Pacific Ocean get into the mid and up basins of the Puyango River laying on the zone a maritime regime, which is determined by two yearly seasons: a rainy winter from January to April, and a dry summer from November to December.

The principal meteorological characteristics of the zone of the Petrified Forest are the following:

Half a monthly temperature                25.20ºC
Half a monthly relative humidity          85.5 %
Half yearly precipitation                      1,160.4 mm