‘Eternal summer’ and the paradox of colder winters due to climate change

“I didn’t quit because I really need the money…,” I heard him confess while standing in line at a small private business (mipyme) in the city of Camagüey, where we both live. When I approached him shortly afterward to ask for details, he told me that a cold like the one on those nights he had only felt years earlier while living in Aguada de Pasajeros, a municipality in the province of Cienfuegos known for its low temperatures. There he learned that the coldest hours are not the middle of the night but dawn, when the humidity from the dew can push the wind chill down to nearly unbearable levels.

It was dawn on February 2 when Dariel seriously thought about finding another job. According to records, that early morning was one of the coldest in Camagüey’s history, with a low of 46 and wind chills around 42 F. Near the Amalia Simoni Hospital, northeast of the city where Dariel works, the wind “burned” as it swept down the wide Finlay Avenue. He barely managed to endure it despite wearing two coats, two pairs of pants, a scarf, gloves, and a hat—and even though he was under a roof. “I don’t even want to imagine how the homeless must have endured it,” he said.

A Sub-Zero Future?

On February 3, Cuba set a new record for the lowest temperature. It occurred in the town of Indio Hatuey, in Matanzas province, where thermometers registered 32 °F. The previous record was 33 degrees, established in 1996 in Báinoa, which is now part of Mayabeque province.

At the start of February, dozens of weather stations—including several in eastern Cuba—recorded temperatures below 50 °F. As early as January 29, meteorologist Ariel Maturell Salina warned in a Facebook post about the dangers of this situation, which, although uncommon, is not unusual for Cuba. The island experiences a winter every few years when temperatures drop below 10 degrees across much of its territory. This occurred in 2022, 2010, 1996, 1981, and 1977, he recalled. “The problem is that those temperatures pose a danger to health.”

There is a maximum risk of hypothermia below 41 °F, and a moderate to high risk below 50 °F. These conditions can develop after less than three hours of exposure. A detail often overlooked is that, in our country, homes are not designed for cold weather and do not provide adequate protection: generally, the indoor temperature is only a few degrees warmer than the outside temperature.

The meteorological outlook for Cuba, as predicted by specialists, shows increasingly hot summers, reduced rainfall, and other negative effects of climate change. These include unusual winters with days of intense heat followed by days of very low temperatures. This was explained on a program of Observatorio Científico broadcast on Cuban television at the end of February.

Such dramatic changes will result from the weakening of the polar vortices, vast low-pressure zones that surround the poles and contain cold air. Cuba is directly impacted by “breaks in the Arctic Polar Vortex, which allow detachments of cold air masses that reach mid-latitudes and even our country,” explained meteorologist and researcher Luis Lecha Estela. “This is a phenomenon that is already causing instability in winter patterns, and everything indicates it will persist in the coming years. We are heading toward a time when winters will become more unpredictable.”

However, the science program clarified that it is nearly impossible for thermometers to fall far below zero degrees or for snowfall to happen. Cuba’s tropical latitude and the warm temperatures of the surrounding sea cause continental air to warm before reaching the island. Additionally, low temperatures are typically recorded late in clear nights, which reduces the chance that precipitation will turn to snow.

Ingenuity in the Face of Climate Change

It doesn’t have to be winter for Michel Urquiza’s home metal roof to make him and his family use blankets and sleep in warm clothing.

During the day, galvanized steel sheets can heat up enough to cause burns on contact, but as soon as night falls, the temperature trend reverses, reaching nearly polar levels when a cold front moves through the city of Camagüey. Living under these conditions is no joke, Michel says, noting that even the metal windows add to the chill inside the house.

That is why, when his job as the driver of an electric tricycle enabled him to start saving a few thousand pesos a month, he decided his main project would be insulating at least the bedrooms with false ceilings. “Every year my kids have allergies until March or April because of the cold. Some nights it’s so intense that the dew condenses and it ‘drizzles’ on us as if we had leaks.”

With a false ceiling, he predicts, “neither cold nor heat will get through.” One of his regular customers showed him that solution after installing it to insulate his own room and cool it with an air conditioner. It could also be a solution for thousands of families across the country living in homes with metal roofs. In many of them, small children, the elderly, and people with respiratory illnesses suffer when low temperatures set in.

The percentage of houses with this type of roofing has continued to increase in recent years, following the economic crisis that has made concrete roofs—such as slabs and prefabricated panels—more expensive. Metal roofs were the most widely distributed material to people affected by the hurricanes and the earthquake that struck eastern Cuba over the past two years. Even the container homes that generated so much media attention weeks ago feature a gabled roof with galvanized sheets.

So far, improvements to this type of roofing have mainly focused on increasing resistance to phenomena like strong winds, while aspects such as insulation capacity have been overlooked. “It’s already a huge sacrifice just to buy the sheets and everything else. Very few people go as far as installing a false ceiling; only those with a lot of money or those who are fed up—like me. Prices in that world are totally crazy. A square meter costs almost as much as a concrete slab. The people who install it justify themselves by saying that all the materials come from abroad and that it’s very expensive to import them. Who knows if they’re telling the truth,” Michel reflected.

A few miles away, Dariel says that early mornings like those at the start of February won’t catch him off guard again. “I convinced the owner to close off part of the snack stand with roofing sheets — it used to have only mesh — and I got myself a double-lined military coat. Workers from other businesses nearby, who have been there for years, told me that even in summer, the dew can make the cold feel ‘fierce,’ and that that dog won’t bite me again,” he said.

For his preparations, he said he followed the advice of a neighbor from Aguada de Pasajeros who used to work night shifts at the “Conejito de Aguada,” a well-known complex for travelers near the National Highway.

“That thing about Cuba being an eternal summer is only half true,” he would say every morning when I ran into him returning from his shifts, bundled up even in August. “Last night we were in the 30s and 40s…,” he’d tell me so I could imagine just how much the weather had gone crazy. If the early mornings of these months have taught me anything, it’s that he was right: no matter how hot it gets during the day, dawn is another story. At that hour, if you’re not careful, you freeze.