Ecobreves – CUBA: Drought Threatens the West

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HAVANA, Mar 12 2011 (IPS) - The drought hitting the westernmost region of Cuba will last through the month of March, predicts the Cuban Meteorology Institute's climate center. Since early February, there has been “a significant deficit in the accumulation of rain, with the most affected areas concentrated in the central western region,” Idelmis González, an expert from the center, told Tierramérica.

In years like this one, under the influence of the climate phenomenon known as La Niña (the cold phase of the Southern Oscillation that alters the marine and atmospheric conditions of the Pacific Ocean), precipitation tends to diminish in March.

The climate center states that since 2010 the drought has been most concentrated in the west, which is unusual because the eastern provinces have historically had Cuba's lowest rain index.