Floods replace oppressive heat in Cuba

Floods replace oppressive heat in Cuba
After recording near record highs, torrential downpours hit Havana as
weather system rolls across the Gulf of Mexico.
30 Apr 2015 11:21 GMT | Weather

Western Cuba has gone from oppressive heat to floods in a matter of days.
After many days of temperatures running up to 10C above average, cooler,
wetter weather rolled across the Gulf of Mexico from the southern states
of the United States.
Casablanca, which is in the municipality of Regla, situated to the east
of the entrance to Havana Harbour has had a huge amount of rainfall. A
staggering 188mm of rain was recorded in the 24 hours leading up to
06:00 GMT on Thursday morning.
Havana usually records around 58mm of rain in the entire month of April.
Little wonder that there has been flooding across the city and
widespread power cuts, and rescue services have been fully stretched
over the last two days.
This marks a sudden change in conditions for northern and western parts
of the country as the arrival of the rain brought with it temperatures
close to the average of 29C. The weekend saw some of Cuba's hottest
weather on record.
Sunday afternoon was the second hottest day in the history of Cuba's
weather records. Holguin and Velasco had highs of 38.7C. According to
Jose Rubiera from the National Forecast Center of the Institute of
Meteorology of Cuba, that is just 0.1C shy of the all-time record set on
April 17, 1999.
Temperatures are expected to remain around the upper 20s over the next
few days and thankfully, the heaviest line of rain is already moving
south (across Cuba) and weakening as it does so. However, further
showers are expected over the next few days.

Source: Floods replace oppressive heat in Cuba - Al Jazeera English -
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/floods-replace-oppressive-heat-cuba-150430093531779.html