Cuba Trails Sudden Hurricane Ida

By Circles Robinson

HAVANA TIMES, Nov. 5 – Hurricane Ida touches down in southeastern Nicaragua on Thursday morning and the Cuban Meteorological Institute is closely tracking the storm that by Monday or Tuesday could bring rains to western Cuba.

Ida, which quickly developed in the western Caribbean on Wednesday, is headed on a northwesterly track, and early this morning had maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour and a central pressure of 991 millibars, according to the Cuban weather experts.

On Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast hurricane warnings took effect in Prinzapolka, Pearl Lagoon,  Desembocadura del Rio Grande and Corn Island, expected to be the hardest hit.  Civil Defense authorities were alerting of the danger of flash floods and landslides caused by heavy rains, reported Nuevo Diario newspaper from Managua.

The National Hurricane Center (Miami) is also tracking the storm and its five day cone shows Ida, reduced to a tropical storm, heading close to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula with outer band rains reaching Cuba’s western provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio, where two major hurricanes caused massive devastation in 2008.

November is the last month of the Caribbean hurricane season which runs from the beginning of June to the end of this month.