A severe local storm accompanied by intense rainfall and strong winds affected several areas of the city of Camagüey this Saturday, with hail reported in the Los Coquitos neighborhood, according to the Camagüey Meteorological Center through the Facebook page of the broadcaster Radio Camagüey.
The official entity described the hailstones as "few and approximately the size of a pea" and confirmed that no damage related to the event was reported.
Moreover, independent journalist José Luis Tan Estrada shared on his Facebook profile a brief clip featuring images of fallen trees in an unspecified location within the territory of Agramonte, as noted by the individual who recorded the footage.
NASA's satellite images taken at 17:36 UTC on Saturday showed intense convective activity over the region, with the label Severe Local Storm superimposed on the area.
The official forecast from the Camagüey government for that day anticipated partly cloudy skies with showers, rain, and thunderstorms in the afternoon, with precipitation probabilities ranging from 50% to 90%.
The event occurs during Cuba's official rainy season, which begins on May 1st and accounts for approximately 80% of the country's annual precipitation, favoring convective instability.
This is not the first time that Camagüey has experienced this type of phenomenon this year. On April 24, a severe storm with large hail struck Ingenio Viejo, in the same municipality, in an event that lasted only six minutes.
On May 7, a waterspout surprised residents of Nuevitas, also in the province of Camagüey, with no damages reported on that occasion.
Other Cuban provinces have experienced similar episodes in recent weeks. On June 3rd, a severe local storm caused flooding in Bayamo, Granma, accompanied by hail and power outages, just 16 days after another event that recorded winds exceeding 100 km/h, 81.5 mm of rain in one hour, and damage to 85 homes.
The recurrence of these phenomena highlights the vulnerability of Cuban cities to extreme weather events, exacerbated by the degradation of urban drainage and the precariousness of infrastructure.
According to the Institute of Geophysics and Astronomy of Cuba, these storms are generated when troughs in the mid and lower levels of the atmosphere facilitate the development of highly unstable cumulonimbus clouds, producing hail, heavy rain, and gusty winds that can exceed 100 km/h.
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