A friend of ours at Gardens America shared with us a weather report from their “Man in Medellin” that we feel is important to pass along. Delaware Valley has been able to confirm the quantities on our orders so far, however, it will be difficult to obtain extra quantities as we approach the heaviest shipping period in the industry.
There is an amazing YouTube video that shows the widespread devastation around the county. You can watch it by clicking on the link below.
YouTube Video of the Flooding in Colombia
Weather Situation in Colombia
Roads have also been compromised due to the rains, preventing the transportation of equipment to try to help towns around the country that have suffered floods and landslides.
Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos, visited Puerto Nare yesterday to assess the situation caused by intense rainfall and flooding triggered by the overflowing Nare and Magdalena Rivers. Some 2883 people from 836 families have been affected so far and 800 homes suffered damages.
The situation in Antioquia due to rain is so dire that rescue units are asking the community to donate what they can to provide aid for victims. Twelve roads are still closed and 28 others have some sort of roadblock. Copied from: http://www.ecbloguer.com/globalnewsroom
According to the IDEAM (Instituto de Hidrologia, Metereologia y Estudios Ambientales) from the Colombian Government the rains will continue until mid May, because of the Nina phenomenon.
Rain: A long term (July-September) analysis by the IDEAM and different international meteorological centers, tend to show a high uncertainty, reason for which the IDEAM believes that is very likely that conditions are going to be normalize soon. It will continue to monitor the Ocean-atmospheric evolution and will keep the community informed of any changes in a timely manner.
View of the Rio Negro in Antioquia where most of the Chrysanthemums and Hydrangeas farms are located.
Front entrance of hydrangea warehouse.
Most of the agronomists are saying that productivity is affected due to sunlight and cold weather. Some of them are talking about being behind production 3 to 5 days and some other growers are saying that they have lost between 10 to 15 % of production due to all the weather factors involved ( sunlight, humidity levels, temperature, fungus, diseases, etc) Production estimates to remain low thru the whole month of May.
