The Sinú Valley dry forests (NT0229) is an ecoregion in the north of Colombia.[a]
Geography
Location
The Sinú Valley is an area of 2,512,288 hectares (6,208,000 acres).[5] located within the zone of parallel, north-northeast trending hills that lies between the low-point Magdalena and the Gulf of Urabá in Northwestern Colombia.
At a sample location at coordinates 10°15′N74°15′W / 10.25°N 74.25°W / 10.25; -74.25 the Köppen climate classification is "Tropical wet and dry or savanna (Aw)".[6]
Mean temperatures range from 26.9 °C (80.4 °F) in October to 28.4 °C (83.1 °F) in March and April.
Total annual rainfall is about 1,490 millimetres (59 in).
There is a dry season with little rainfall from December to March. The rest of months lack a strict pattern of rainfall, except for the peak of October which has a rainfall mean that is very high compared to the rest of the year. Monthly rainfall ranges from 24.8 millimetres (0.98 in) in December to 241.5 millimetres (9.51 in) in October.[6]
^The WWF's WildFinder application shows the ecoregion as lying to the east of the Magdalena River.[1] A similar map is given in Land Cover Change in Colombia ... (2012).[2] However, the Sinú River runs well to the west of the Magdalena River.
The WWF description of ecoregion NT0229 generally describes the diverse environment of the Sinú River valley, although the section on "Justification of Ecoregion Delineation" matches the WildFinder map, for example saying it is "flanked by the Cordillera Oriental of the northern Andes to the east".[3] A clue to resolving the discrepancy may be given by a map, apparently from a report on the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, that shows the Sinú Valley dry forests ecoregion extending from the lower Sinú Valley east to the Cordillera Oriental, including the north part of the Magdalena-Urabá moist forests as shown on the WildFinder map.[4]