HAVANA (Reuters) – Cubans bundled up in heavy jackets, hats and gloves and shuttered their houses on Monday as near-record cold and robust winds slammed the balmy Caribbean island extra accustomed to brilliant solar and sultry commerce winds.
The small city of Bainoa, east of Havana, felt temperatures plunge to simply 3 diploma Celsius (37.4°F) early Monday morning, following gusty winds that buffeted the island’s palm fringed shores a lot of the weekend.
“This isn’t regular,” mentioned Havana resident Barbara Salgado, carrying a black scarf round her neck to push back the cold. “Temperatures right here (in winter) are at all times cool however they’re by no means like this, it is virtually polar.”
The excessive climate prompted Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel to name on residents to be careful for each other.
“Take care particularly of our youngsters and aged,” he mentioned on Twitter on Sunday.
Police shut down Havana’s shorefront boulevard, the Malecon, on Sunday and early Monday, and lots of of even probably the most stalwart fishermen had vacated their posts as towering, foam-topped rollers slammed the seawall, flooding streets and soaking passersby.
Jorge Sanchez, who strolled the road in a heat jacket, marveled on the cold.
“It’s really been a very long time since it has been this cold. It’s unbelievable,” Sanchez mentioned.
The identical entrance introduced uncommon cold to Florida on Sunday morning, triggering a freeze outlook from the U.S. National Weather Service and the coldest temperatures in a decade throughout massive swaths of the state.
Temperatures in Havana and all through Cuba are anticipated to reasonable step by step and hover at regular ranges by week’s finish, native meteorologists mentioned.
(Reporting by Reuters TV and Dave Sherwood; Editing by Richard Chang)
