Five of the 11 tropical cyclones forecast for this season by the Cuban National Institute of Meteorology (Insmet) could become hurricanes. He official forecastissued this Thursday, indicates that 2023 will be a year from normal to little active in the formation of cyclones on the Island, but, nevertheless, it has a 35% probability of being affected by a hurricane.
The Insmet assures that seven of the announced tropical cyclones – a category that encompasses tropical storms as well as hurricanes into which they can evolve – will form in the Atlantic Ocean, while two of them will appear in the Caribbean Sea and another two in the Gulf of Mexico.
They indicated that there is a 40% probability that a hurricane that forms in the Atlantic will penetrate the Caribbean, as well as a 45% probability that those that arise in the Caribbean region will reach the classification and intensity of a hurricane.
In addition, they explained that between January and March the temperature of the sea surface in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean exceeded normal parameters and was warmer, which will contribute to hurricanes consolidating and gaining strength. There was also a rise in the temperature of the eastern equatorial Pacific.
Between January and March, the temperature of the sea surface in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean exceeded normal parameters and was warmer, which will contribute to the hurricanes consolidating and gaining strength.
The area will no longer suffer the cooling caused by the phenomenon known as La Niña-Southern Oscillation (Aenos) – a periodic variation of the oceanic and atmospheric temperature in the equatorial Pacific with great climatic consequences – and will return to neutral conditions, indicated the Institute.
However, an “event” caused by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (Enos), the opposite phenomenon of Aenos, is expected to bring warming and rain. “The greatest uncertainty for this hurricane season lies in the intensity that the Enos event will be able to reach,” the specialists warned.
Regarding the classification from normal to little active this season, the Insmet values that the configuration of the “circulatory patterns of the lower and middle troposphere (up to six kilometers high)”, during the first four months of 2023, is similar that registered in other normal seasons.
The Insmet will issue another part again on August 1.
The cyclones that reach the Island this 2023 will add to the panorama of shortages, fuel crisis and lack of medical supplies, three factors that make it impossible to guarantee security
Cubans are already used to hurricanes passing through the island and the devastation they produce both in the cities – where there are no conditions to insure buildings or goods – and in the countryside, where crops are often lost. The cyclones that reach the Island this 2023 will add to the panorama of shortages, fuel crises and lack of medical supplies, three factors that make it impossible to guarantee the safety of citizens in the face of these phenomena.
In September 2022, western Cuba was devastated by Hurricane Ian, which left five dead, 102,000 houses affected only in Pinar del Río, the almost total destruction of the tobacco crop and a long season of blackouts and misery for the inhabitants of the province. After its passage, numerous social protests occurred, especially one on Línea street in Havana, due to the slowness of the authorities in restoring the electrical service.
Edil Sepúlveda, one of the scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute, exposed last January that 2022 had been the sixth hottest year in recorded history. As a consequence, both the Caribbean and Mexico had to begin preparing to receive more intense hurricanes and, by the end of the century, a rise of at least two meters in sea level.
“More of the same” and “more intensified” will come, predicted the researcher, concerned about the weather conditions that could affect the region in the coming years. His diagnosis, based on reports from the Goddard Institute, is that “we are not on the right track.”
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