• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 12 / 17 / 2010

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Dec 16, 2010; 10:08 AM ET. The cold weather that caused record lows across the Southeast this week has made it all the way into the Caribbean.

16/12/1910. As a public notice of the Meteorological Institute of Cuba (INSMET) left early yesterday to 31 records of minimum temperature for December in many other parts of the country. During the early morning there were "remarkable low temperatures" of 41 meteorological stations, which ranged between 1.9 and 12 C at various locations. The most significant is the 1.9 C Colon, Matanzas, considered historic for the region after the 2.8 C 1989.

Other records of note are Santa Cruz (4.0 C), Emerald (4.5 C), Cienfuegos (4.5 C), Sancti Spiritus (5.7 C), Veguitas (7.2 C), Guaimaro (7, 8 C), Holguin (8.0 C) and Manzanillo (8.8 C). The record low temperature in Cuba is 0.6 C and is dated 18 February 1996.

So basically the Cuban met service is saying that the country was one degree above their all-time low temperature -- pretty impressive considering it's mid-December. Here's a map of the lowest temperature this month at climate stations for which AccuWeather has a reliable record:

At San Juan Puerto Rico, it was the coolest (if you can call 76 F "cool") Dec. 15th afternoon in 112 years (ironically the beginning year of records there is the same ancient cold spell that I talked about in North Carolina yesterday). Saint Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, also set a new daily record. The rain yesterday contributed to the cool temperatures -- and again 1898 comes into play; this year is now on track to be the wettest since rainfall records began at San Juan.

According to AccuWeather records, Freeport in the Bahamas fell to 41 F Tuesday -- the same as their unusually cold day in January 2010 -- and only two degrees above their record all-time low for the island nation, which is 39.

Source: www.accuweather.com/blogs/weathermatrix/story/43104/florida-and-caribbea...