The Byron Depression continued delivering heavy showers and storms across most of Cyprus, with the Paphos district seeing peack rainfalls, recorded as the highest since 1916, while many areas have, on a thirst quenching note for water reserves, covered their December averages, with that of course not making that much of a difference in terms of the long standing drought crisis.
As the Met Service said in a relevant announcement, the Polis Chrysochous station recorded daily rainfall of 113.1mm, the second highest 24 hour December intake for as long as data has been collected there when the station was established in 1916.
The service noted that between December 5th-7th, Cyprus was affected by the Byron Depression, a system that had produced peak rainfall and electrical storms in Greek and began producing heavy showers across the island in the early hours of Sunday.
The average Polis Chrysochous December rainfall is 99.8mm, according to the same source, while the Kathikas station recorded 67.1mm, the third largest December intake since 1977, when the station was established.
Several other Paphos stations as well as around the island, recorded intakes between 15 and 57mm, confirming the highly extensive rainfall characteristic of the Byron system.
Preliminary 5th-7th December evidence, as outlined in the map provided below, indicate that the highest percentage of rainfall concentrated in the western, southwestern and mountainous areas of the island, with an average of 35.1mm in the government controlled areas.
Significant rainfall meant that many stations came close to covering their monthly average, while Polis recorded 126mm by the morning of the 8th. Other areas were around the 25-40% of their intake.
SOURCE-CNA