A few hours after the official start of the 2023 Cyclonic Season, we return to the topic of tropical cyclones—which we will surely touch on more than once throughout it—although the forecasts predict that it will not be very busy.
Although we know very well that Cuba, due to its geographical position, is in constant danger of being affected by these cyclonic organisms, the month of June is perhaps one of those that are considered does not represent a high danger for our country. At the beginning of the season, the conditions are not ripe for the development of high-intensity storms, as occurs in the months of August and September, however it is not a harmless month.
For this analysis we must begin by defining that the months of the cyclonic season not only differ in cyclonic activity, that is, the number of organisms that form, but also the areas where this occurs and the paths they generally take.
The first is given by conditions from the oceanic and atmospheric point of view, which are necessary for areas of bad weather to persist and organize themselves. The second responds to the position of other meteorological systems, which govern the movement that these cyclones can have.
During the month of June, the Atlantic Anticyclone is extended well to the west, dominating the entire Atlantic and reaching a large part of the Caribbean Sea. This influence leaves little space (area) for the development of bad weather zones, which are limited in that period to the west of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
In the figure we can see the formation zones of the named tropical cyclones (tropical storms and hurricanes) for the month of June, in addition to the average trajectories in that month. The blue areas indicate where the average formation is between 10 and 29 named cyclones every 100 years, outside of them it is less than that figure, that is, less than one every 10 years.
As you can see, the west of Cuba is the one with the highest risk of direct affectation at the beginning of the season, from a statistical point of view, because there are always organisms that do not behave like the generality.
If we analyze the trajectories of all the tropical storms and hurricanes that have affected Cuba from 1851 to date, we can see that the west is indeed the most affected, if we only take the center of circulation as a reference. The strongest winds occur in the vicinity of the center, but the rainy areas can extend to several hundred kilometers, so the central region and in some cases the eastern region could also be affected by these elements.
Of these, only Hurricane Alma in 1966 reached category 3, already considered to be of great intensity, although as it passed through Cuba it was category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Only three cyclones have crossed over Cuba as hurricanes in June and 12 as tropical storms, which is not to say that the latter have not subsequently become hurricanes.
Two trajectories that do not follow the behavior of the group are striking, one originating in the Caribbean and crossing over the eastern region and another formed near the Bahamas, which first moved west and then “recurved” to the northeast; the first occurred in 1904 and the second in 1906.
The last of these organisms was Arlene in 2005, the same name that opens the list of this 2023 and that will name the first tropical storm to form this year. If Alberto comes to mind in 2018, remember that it was a cyclone in the month of May.