Since the end of July, the passage of ships through the Panama Canal has been restricted due to the lack of rainfall, which has had an impact on the level of Lake Gatun.
The Panama Canal took temporary measures and limited the number of ships authorised to cross the canal, which caused a huge traffic jam at both ends of the canal. At the beginning of September, the Panama Canal announced that the queue of ships at the 2 entrances had fallen by around 20% compared with the previous week (108 ships compared with 135).
Among the temporary measures: for the locks, an average of 32 transits per day (down from 36); for the Neopanamax locks, maximum draught levels are 13.4 metres (44 feet), down from an average of 15.2 metres (50 feet) last year.
According to information on the Panama Canal website, these temporary measures will be maintained for the remainder of this year and throughout 2024, unless weather conditions change significantly from current forecasts.
The lack of rainfall has had an impact on Lake Gatun, now at 24.2 metres (79.7 feet), compared with 26.6 metres (87.41 feet) in September of previous years. Typically, the lake ends a normal rainy season at 27.1 metres (89 feet) in November and ends the dry season at the end of April at 25.9 metres (85 feet).