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March 18, 1999
Web posted at: 10:21 a.m. EST (1521 GMT)

In this story: 'When a hurricane is over Cuba, it is coming towards us' Flying into Cuban airspace RELATED STORIES, SITES

HAVANA (CNN) -- Considering the stormy political relationship between Washington and Havana, there's been a rare show of cooperation on the subject of -- storms. U.S. hurricane experts swapped data and experiences Wednesday with Cuban colleagues in Havana.

"It's as natural as day for us to be here," Jerry Jarrell, director of the U.S. National Weather Service's Hurricane Center in Miami, told reporters in the Cuban capital.

He was leading a team of hurricane specialists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who flew into Jose Marti International Airport on Tuesday aboard one of the NOAA's P-3 turboprop "Hurricane Hunter" aircraft.

The planes, specially equipped for research and reconnaissance, fly into tropical storms to gather weather data considered vital for issuing hurricane warnings.

"The only way that we know how to get the strength of the storm is to fly into it and drop instruments," Jarrell told CNN.

Ironically, the NOAA is an agency of the Commerce Department, which helps to regulate the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

'When a hurricane is over Cuba, it is coming towards us'

The U.S. specialists compared notes with their counterparts from Cuba's Institute of Meteorology, which forecasts hurricanes and tracks their potential threat to the Communist-ruled Caribbean island, located 90 miles from the southern tip of Florida.

Both sides stressed the importance of international cooperation, because marauding hurricanes respect no frontiers.

"The hurricane that affects Cuba today affects the United States tomorrow," said Jose Rubiera, a senior Cuban forecaster. "And when one strikes the U.S., it can also hit Cuba or any other country in the region."

Jarrell agreed: "When a hurricane is over you (in Cuba), it is coming towards us (in the United States). So we use information coming from Cuba."

Cuba does not have diplomatic ties with Washington, and U.S.-Cuban relations have been mostly hostile since shortly after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

The threat of hurricanes links the United States and Cuba, even as political ties are strained

But despite chilly political ties, U.S. and Cuban authorities have managed to establish a cautious measure of cooperation in areas of mutual interest, such as emigration policy, hurricane forecasting and, sporadically, anti-drugs operations.

The P-3 carried a team of NOAA crew and experts making a five-day "hurricane awareness" tour to five Central American and Caribbean states that were among the worst affected by hurricanes Georges and Mitch last year.

Georges killed more than 500 people in the Caribbean in September. U.S.-Cuban cooperation at that time helped U.S. forecasters decide whether or not to evacuate southern Florida.

A crew from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is making a "hurricane awareness" tour of Central America and the Carribean

Flying into Cuban airspace

"Our ability to go into Cuban airspace and mark the exact center of the storm was very critical in making that call," says NOAA Commander Ron Philippsborn.

Just over a month later, Mitch killed at least 9,000 and made 2 million people homeless in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The NOAA mission was also to visit Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Havana Bureau Chief Lucia Newman and Reuters contributed to this report.