August tends to be more dangerous for Cuba regarding the formation of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, a specialist said on Friday.

Havana, Cuba.- The threat is more evident during the second half of August, when, together with the first half of September, is the period of maximum cyclonic activity of the season from June 1 to November 30.

Luis Enrique Ramos, coordinator of the History Commission of the Cuban Meteorological Society, explained that between 1791 and 2022, the country was hit by 19 hurricanes in August.

The main area of emergence of tropical hurricanes in August is in the open waters of the tropical Atlantic, between the coasts of Africa and the arc of the Lesser Antilles.

They tend to move persistently for several days to the west and west-northwest, so some of them manage to penetrate the eastern Caribbean Sea and then move through the seas south of Cuba, towards the Yucatan Peninsula, Ramos said.

Others pass over the northern coast of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic on their way to the Bahamas and the southeastern United States.

Ramos recalled that in 2022 no named hurricane was formed in August in the tropical Atlantic basin, something that only occurred in the 1941, 1961, and 1997 seasons. (PL)