The National General Staff of the Civil Defense in Cuba also declared an Information Phase for two provinces in the center of the country.
LIMA, Peru – The National General Staff of the Civil Defense in Cuba established this Saturday the Alert phase from 3:00 p.m. for the provinces of Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguín, Las Tunas and Camagüey and the Information Phase for the provinces of Ciego de Ávila and Sancti Spíritus.
The Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology (INSMET) reported for his part that during the last hours tropical storm Melissa has shown better organization and an increase in its intensity.
“The population is encouraged to stay informed,” says a note from the National General Staff.
INSMET updated its Telegram profile that Melissa reached hurricane status this Saturday, with winds exceeding 120 kilometers per hour.
The system is currently located 345 kilometers from Kingston, Jamaica, and 405 kilometers from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, however, there is a forecast of where and at what time it will impact land.
Five countries They are on alert before the passage of this meteorological phenomenon: Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Bahamas and Cuba.
This afternoon, Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in the US, warned that Melissa’s slow mobility “unfortunately” will continue for another three or four days, and predicted that the hurricane would be reaching Cuba next Wednesday.
“But really the biggest thing to talk about here is the extremely heavy rains and catastrophic flooding that will come with the storm because it is moving so slowly. This slow movement is going to really cause a problem,” the expert warned prior to Melissa’s passage through Jamaica.
He NHC highlighted accumulated 20 to 30 inches of rain, so much rain that you could almost measure it in feet instead of inches.
“So that type of rain is going to cause catastrophic flooding somewhere over the island of Jamaica and potentially Haiti. Eventually, spreading across southeastern Cuba at some point later in the forecast,” Rhome stresses.
