Cold in Cuba

Havana, Dec 24 (RHC) After the predominance of warm days in the first three weeks of December, starting today, Saturday, temperatures should drop considerably and it is likely that over the course of the next three days the lowest values of the current winter season in the country will be reported.

It may be thought that such a pronounced drop in this meteorological variable has not occurred for several years, but if we look at the behavior of the previous winter 2021-2022, we can see that this was not the case.

In the early morning of January 31, the Bainoa station, Mayabeque province, recorded an extremely significant minimum of 2.8 degrees Celsius.

Even frost was observed in the fields of the locality, which according to Dr. José Rubiera, was because on the surface or very close to it, the temperature must have dropped to zero degrees, which could explain the formation of this natural phenomenon.

During that same day there were notably cold records in other localities of the western and central provinces, such as 3.2 degrees at the José Martí International Airport; 3.5 in Unión de Reyes, and 3.7 in Tapaste.

In the capital's Casablanca station, the minimum temperature was 9.9 degrees, one of the closest in the last four decades to the absolute record of 8.5 degrees, which dates back to January 11, 1970.

Digging into the archives, it becomes clear that after the national cold record of 0.6 degrees in Bainoa (February 18, 1996), the lowest known temperatures in Cuba are 1.0 degrees, in Unión de Reyes, and 1.2, in Indio Hatuey (January 21, 1971); 1.8 in Güira de Melena (January 11, 1970), and 1.9 in Colón (December 15, 2010).

It is worth noting the harsh winter conditions that prevailed during most of December 2010, whose average temperature was the fourth lowest in the Cuban archipelago in more than six decades, after February 1958, January 1981, and January 1956.

Specifically, in that December there were two remarkable days. The first one took place on the 15th, when 31 monthly minimum temperature records were set, while the other occurred on the 28th when 32 weather stations reported values below ten degrees.

One of the testimonies referring to the alleged existence of temperatures below zero degrees in Cuba was recorded in 1800 by Baron Alejandro de Humboldt when he mentioned in his notes that he saw "frosts" in places near Havana.

Likewise, observations made by the Cuban scholar Andrés Poey y Aguirre (forerunner of scientific meteorology on the Island), gathered information, written by the late meteorologist Roberto Ortiz Héctor, emphasizing the harshness of the winter of 1845, commenting that there was frost in the vicinity of the city of Santiago de Cuba!

He also points out that in San Diego Núñez, some 28 leagues from Havana, the oil in the street lamps froze, something unthinkable for today's Cubans.

The most striking thing in Poey's notes is his reference to snowfall on a mountain peak in western Cuba in January 1852, an event that, in the opinion of specialists consulted by Granma, could only happen under the predominance of extreme and anomalous meteorological conditions, because in their advance towards the south, the masses of very cold air of arctic origin, which come from North America to influence our country, are attenuated by the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Strait.

But there are indications that in distant times, temperatures in the Cuban archipelago were below freezing point in certain periods.

Research carried out by Jesús Pajón Morejón, specialist of the Department of Paleogeography and Paleobiology of the National Museum of Natural History, belonging to the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Environment (Citma), allowed obtaining new isotopic records and paleotemperature curves, with greater precision and resolution for the last 125,000 years, in the western area of Cuba.

This made it possible to detect the occurrence of climatic events not previously reported in our country, among them an intense episode of dry cold called Younger Dryas, which took place in high latitudes of the northern hemisphere 12 000 or 11 000 years ago.

As shown by the results of the study, which is part of the National Climate Change Project in Cuba, the estimated average temperature fluctuated between seven and nine degrees Celsius.

Considering this data, it is very likely that extreme minimum temperatures significantly lower than the referred values would occur in the Greater Antilles.

So far, the 2022-2023 winter season has not had any marked decrease in temperatures. We will see if this scenario changes in the last week of December or we will have to wait for January and February, the two coldest months of the calendar in our country.

The 2020-2021 winter season has been the one with the latest start in Cuba since 1916 to date, with the first cold front entering on November 30.

Cold fronts are classified as weak (less than 35 kilometers per hour), moderate (36 to 55 km/h), and strong (if they exceed 55 km/h) according to the strength of the maximum sustained average wind.

The average number of cold fronts per season is around 19.5, while the record for the highest number is 35, established in the 1976-1977 season.

The cold front may be preceded by lines of thunderstorms with rain and strong winds, hail, and other severe weather conditions, particularly those associated with extratropical lows. (Source: Granma newspaper).