HAVANA (Reuters) – If May is any indication, Cuba is in for a long, hot summer, says Osmel Valdes, a horse and cart driver from Havana.
The 52-year-old Havana resident runs a transportation service through the sweltering streets of the Cuban capital. Shade is hard to find, so he puts a piece of cardboard on his horse between rides to give him a reprieve.
“This month the heat has been terrible,” he says.
Across the island country, summer temperatures arrived nearly two months earlier, exacerbated by hours-long power outages due to fuel shortages and power plant breakdowns. With nighttime temperatures reaching 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) and daytime temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius, there is no escape, locals say.
Meteorologist Ramon Perez, who works for the Cuban Climate Center, says May appears to be the warmest month on the Caribbean island since 1951, when record keeping began here.
“The climate in Cuba is gradually getting hotter and hotter, especially our summers,” Perez told Reuters.
Last summer was the hottest on record and this summer is on track for similarly sweltering temperatures, a phenomenon the meteorologist attributes to global warming.
The increasing frequency and intensity of severe weather – both on land and in the oceans – is symptomatic of the global human-induced climate change that is fueling extremes, experts say.
The El Nino weather pattern, which began to weaken in March, has also led to above-average land and sea temperatures around the world.
These conditions leave Cuba, which sits at the stormy intersection of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, exceptionally exposed to a hurricane season that is expected to be one of the worst on record.
The Cuban Climate Center says there is an 80% chance that at least one hurricane will hit the island this season.
U.S. government forecasters said last week that up to seven major hurricanes could form in an “extraordinary” 2024 Atlantic hurricane season that begins June 1.
Cuba’s sultry temperatures are accompanied by a devastating economic crisis.
The one-two punch has already exhausted Cubans like Nelson Jadier, a sweat-drenched 28-year-old who works at a restaurant and woos customers from the sidewalk.
“May has been quite a month for those of us who have to work on the streets to put food on the table,” Jadier said.
(Reporting by Alien Fernandez, Mario Fuentes and Anett Rios, Editing by Dave Sherwood and Rod Nickel)
