Geography of Cuba. Relief, climate, flora and fauna -2

2. Guamauhaya Range, is located in the central area of the country occupying part of the counties of Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara and it is compound for Sierra of Escambray and Sierra de Trinidad, with a total extension of about 4500 km². This mountain range is but well-known as Sierra of Escambray and it is strongly bound to the recent history of the country to be the main scenario of the fight against the Cuban Revolution until middle of the decade of the 60.

The altitude here are between the 300 and the 1100 meters being reached the maximum in Pico San Juan with 1140 meters over sea level. These mountains in general are covered with thick vegetation among which the trees of beautiful wood are plentiful and the relief is abrupt with straits valleys and abundant cascades and its southern skirt is escarped and it finishes very next to Caribbean Sea of which separates a narrow coastal plain. In short, a paradise for the ecoturism.

3. Sierra Maestra, located in the southeast of the island is the biggest and highest mountain range of Cuba, forms a bastion to the long thing and parallelly to the south coast from Cabo Cruz until Punta de Maisi with around 250 km of longitude and between 15 and 60 km of width. They conform it properly Sierra Maestra, Sierra Cristal in the neighbor of Punta de Maisi and Sierra of Nipe in their northeast portion. The altitude in this region are between 300 and 2000 meters being reached the biggest heights in the country: Pico Turquino with 1974 meters over sea level, Pico Cuba, 1872 meters and Pico Suecia, 1734 meters.

Sierra Maestra is the natural and most majestic scenario of the country, treare are several natural parks as Pico Turquino, Desembarco del Granma, Santo Domingo-La Sierrita y Marea del Portillo that makes it specially appropriate for the nature tourism.

Sierra Maestra is also closely bound to the recent history of Cuba because was the scenario of the fight of Fidel Castro's guerrillas against Fulgencio Batista dictatorship among final of 1956 and final of 1958.

Climate

The climate of Cuba is subtropical humid, with two clearly defined stations, the dry one (winter) of November to April, and the rainy one (summer) of May to October and with continuous breezes the whole year that they refresh substantially. The annual average temperature is 24°C, average in winter is 20°C and in summer is 26-27°C. During the winter season it is frequent the entrance of cold fronts with minimum temperatures sometimes below 10°C. The minimum temperatures vary between 1°C and 8.5 °C in the occident of the country and between 3°C and 12.5°C in the oriental region; the registered maximum temperatures are among 36°C-38°C.

Generally Western region are less hot and more rainy but that the oriental in spite of that the basin of the river Toa in the oriental part is the area most rainy of Cuba with an annual average 3000 mm of rainfall.

The rains have an annual average of 1 200 mm (48 inches) with around 30% of the precipitations in the winter period and the remaining 70% in the summer and in general they are more abundant in the occident of the country that in the east.

Average variable	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Ago	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Avg max temperature (°C)	26	26	27	28	29	30	31	31	31	29	27	26	26
Avg min temperature (°C)	18	18	19	21	22	23	23	24	23	23	21	19	19
Avg temperature (°C)	22	22	24	25	26	27	27	27	26	26	24	23	25
Rain (mm)	64	69	46	53	99	183	107	99	145	180	89	58	1192

A very significant element in the climate of Cuba are the hurricanes that affect the country average once every two years. The hurricanes or tropical hurricanes are areas of drops pressures of among 300-500 km of diameter that cause winds, rains and extremely strong sea surf that usually have catastrophic effects in the regions for where they cross. The season of hurricanes extends from June to November, but they are the months of September and October the most dangerous so much for the frequency in passing of hurricanes as for the intensity of them.

Season and intensity	Total	Jun	Jul	Ago	Sep	Oct	Nov
Years 1800 to 2000	92	6	3	11	25	37	10
High intensity (winds more 200 km/hour)	14	0	0	1	3	9	1
Moderate intensity (winds between 151 to 200 km/hour)	28	1	1	4	7	13	2
Low intensity (winds between 118 to 150 km/hour)	50	5	2	6	15	15	7