We, Cubans, associate the month of January, in addition to the obvious beginning of a new year that brings its own plans and goals, with winter. That opportunity that we have to rest from the high temperatures and to wear the clothes that we can rarely in the year in our “tropical winter”.

Although the month of February is famous because it "holds" the record for the minimum temperature recorded: 0.6 degrees Celsius, on February 18, 1996 in Bainoa; It is not precisely in that month that the largest number of minimum temperature records have been reported in our country.

According to data taken from the Statistical Yearbook of Cuba in its latest version (2021), of the 68 meteorological stations, 41 of them have registered their absolute minimum value in the month of January, 12 in the month of December, 10 in February and only 5 In March. Here I stop and leave you with another curiosity: all these records that have occurred in the month of December (the 12 mentioned) correspond to the year 2010, a topic that we will discuss on another occasion.

Of these absolute values ​​for January, the lowest are:

1.0 ºC in Union de Reyes, Matanzas

1.2 ºC in Indio Hatuey, Matanzas

1.8 ºC in Güira de Melena

1.8 ºC in Venezuela, Ciego de Avila

The foregoing is not enough to consider January as the coldest month, since this qualifier not only depends on these extreme values, although indeed the first month of the year is the coldest.

The Institute of Meteorology (Insmet) in its climate forecast for the month of January, describes:

“January is the third month of the dry season in Cuba. During this month, there is a greater affectation of cold fronts in relation to previous months, which frequently influences the establishment of winter conditions. This is also one of the least rainy months of the year. Precipitation depends fundamentally on the frontal systems that affect the country”.

“Normally in January temperatures drop appreciably compared to November and December, mainly in the second half. During the course of this month, cold continental air masses usually predominate and there are cold days, alternating cool periods and slightly warm ones. All this allows characterizing January as the coldest month of the year in Cuba. However, in recent years both the maximum and minimum temperatures were in most cases close to or above normal.

This means that in recent years the months of January have not behaved as cold as those experienced by our parents and grandparents in the 70s and 80s of the last century. If we review the absolute minimum values, of those 41 stations with records established in January, only five have been after the year 2000. It is necessary to clarify that these data only cover up to the year 2021 and show the absolute minimum value reported, not the records or relevant values ​​from the monthly point of view. On the other hand, all the weather stations do not have the same number of years of accumulated observations, although the vast majority, 57 of them, were created after 1965, the year the Institute of Meteorology was founded.

It does not mean that important values ​​have not been reported in recent years, even constituting records for January. For example, in the early morning of January 31, 2022, 33 weather stations (almost half of the total) reported minimum temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius, setting a record for that month, at the Bainoa station with 2.8 degrees Celsius.

What is expected for this 2023

In the Insmet's own climate forecast, it is mentioned that behavior within the climatic norm is expected, that is, within the usual behavior reported in the climatic period 1981-2010. And as we were able to feel last weekend, January has not disappointed us, since in the early hours of this Sunday and Monday, minimum values ​​below 10 degrees were reported at 21 and 40 weather stations respectively, out of a total of 68. Celsius. Several of the temperatures reported in the eastern region may constitute a record for said points in the month of January.

In the Indio Hatuey meteorological study, a minimum of 1.5 degrees Celsius was reported, which if we compare it with the absolute values ​​mentioned above, would be only behind the first two and the absolute national value of Bainoa.