Hurricane Ida leaves significant rainfall at its wake in Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 28 (ACN) The intense rains associated with Hurricane Ida will not only mean substantial increases in accumulated rainfall in the country, but also more volumes of water retained in reservoirs and subway basins, one of the few positive aspects of meteorological phenomena, especially when long droughts have prevailed.

Although only after the passage Ida the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH) will report the final behavior of such indicators, until Thursday in the national territory had accumulated 107.8 mm of rainfall, or 67% of the monthly average (161.0 mm), being the territories with the most significant figures those of Isle of Youth, Matanzas, Sancti Spíritus and Pinar del Río.

In this regard - and for a 72-hour period (until tomorrow, the 29th) - an accumulated rainfall of 37.1 mm was forecast for the country, equivalent to 23% of the average for the month of August (161 mm), according to Osvaldo Martínez Torres, deputy general director of Integral Water Management of the INRH, in Havana.

The western provinces will average 84.7 mm (44 %), the central ones 26.1 mm (16 %) and the eastern ones 8.9 mm (7 %), and particularly the most significant records are expected in Isla de la Juventud and in Pinar del Río and Artemisa, and at the municipality level in the capital city itself and in the localities of Consolación del Sur, Los Palacios and San Luis.

In a meeting of the Management Center of the National Defense Council for Disaster Cases, Martinez Torres also said that there has been a permanent surveillance of the reservoirs and that before the arrival of Hurricane Ida some of them were already in better conditions.
A total of 51 dams and micro-dams exceeded 95% of their normal capacity, 31 were full and, of them, 23 were discharging, mainly from the territories of Pinar del Río (7), Isla de La Juventud (6), La Habana (2) and Holguín (2).

After August 29, the volume of water retained in these facilities is expected to reach 5715.2 million m3 (62% of the national capacity), which represents an increase of 130.0 million m3 in relation to the volume of water retained at the beginning of August 26, said the specialist.
The largest possible increases in reservoir filling should correspond to Puente Largo (Ciego de Avila; 14.5 million), Zaza (Sancti Spíritus; 11.4 million), and La Juventud (9.9 million), Ramírez (5.4 million) and El Punto (4.8 million), all in Pinar del Río.

Since the passage of Ida (first a tropical storm and then a hurricane) was imminent, one of the main indications of the National Civil Defense General Staff -directed to all management bodies and provinces- was to maintain a permanent hydro-meteorological vigilance.

It referred to the monitoring of the relationship between the accumulated rainfall, the runoff mainly in mountainous areas, the inflow and outflow volumes of reservoirs in hydrological prevention and the areas near the banks of rivers, in addition to taking into account the effect of the runoff of rains after the scourge of the atmospheric organism.