The droughts in Mexico during the XIX Century [Las sequías en Mexico durante el siglo XIX]

Throughout history, droughts have been considered to be erratic and unforeseeable phenomena that constitute a deviation with respect to the average measured values of long term precipitation, which happen to occur every once in a while. Therefore, one of the greatest interests of climatologists has been to learn the causes that determine the frequency of droughts. For this reason, the present paper discusses the principal studies on droughts in the 19th Century. The insights of these scholars are confronted with meteorological registers and documentation on droughts located in Mexico's Archivo General de la Nación (the Nation's General Archives), which allows the construction of a frame of reference on the great regional droughts that were observed in Mexico during the period under discussion. The final purpose of this work, is to lay the foundations that allow us to know more about the great droughts in this time period and their regularity.

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