Cuba strengthens early warning system in north-central part of the country

CIEGO DE AVILA, Cuba, Feb 23 (ACN) The installation of an automatic meteorological station (EMA by its Spanish acronym) in the coastal town of Punta Alegre, in the northwest of Ciego de Avila, will strengthen the early warning system (EWS) in the north-central region of Cuba to face extreme hydrometeorological phenomena and other effects of climate change (CC).

Aliana Lopez Mayea, deputy technical director of the Provincial Meteorological Center (CMP), explained that the equipment - consisting of a mast with sensors, a rain gauge and a solar panel (with its battery) for power supply - will transmit data uninterruptedly, with the possibility of obtaining information every 10 minutes and monitoring atmospheric variables in real time.

She explained that the EMA, acquired through the international Coastal Resilience (CR) project -with one of its four direct intervention sites in Punta Alegre-, will allow measuring the behavior of temperatures, rainfall, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, cloudiness, atmospheric pressure, solar radiation and other indicators.

Lopez Mayea valued the effectiveness of this system for disaster risk reduction (DRR) by alerting about exceptional situations and effects of tropical cyclones, heavy rains, droughts and other phenomena that may occur as a consequence of the CC.

She recalled that the project increases resilience in communities damaged by Hurricane Irma and threatened by the CC, so that they can face the rise of the average sea level and hydrometeorological events of great intensity, in line with the forecasts for that portion of the northern coast of Cuba.

Previously lacking this equipment and, therefore, classified as a silent zone, the north-central region of Cuba currently has an automated weather station in Playa Vitoria, in the municipality of Yaguajay, and the one in Punta Alegre is expected to start providing services next March.

The improvement of the infrastructure and technology of early warning systems, both hydrometeorological and mean sea level rise, is among the priorities of the CR, financed by the European Union, through the Global Climate Change Alliance plus, with four million Euros.