March 17, 2026, 6:20 p.m. ET
While discussing Cuba during a White House news conference on March 16, President Donald Trump made a surprising statement that quickly caught the attention of hurricane scientists and statisticians.
After saying Cuba is “a beautiful island,” with great weather, the president added that they are “not in a hurricane zone, which is nice for a change. They won’t be asking us for money for hurricane every week.”
But since 1983, Cuba has had more direct landfalls from hurricanes – 19 – than any other country that’s considered part of the Caribbean, according to data provided by the National Hurricane Center, part of the National Weather Service.
“The president is incorrect,” said James Franklin, a retired branch chief for hurricane specialists at the National Hurricane Center.
USA TODAY reached out to the White House for clarification regarding the president’s statement, but did not receive any additional information.
Cuba’s hurricane landfalls
Historical data shows Cuba leads the Caribbean in hurricane landfalls.
That doesn’t include any hurricanes that narrowly missed the island, or any tropical storms that moved near or over it.
Passing hurricanes compared
Based on historical hurricane information that dates back to 1851, the hurricane risk in western Cuba “is similar to the risk along the western Gulf coast, and only slightly lower than the risk in Miami,” Franklin said on March 17, after running a data analysis comparing the number of times a hurricane passed within certain points across the Atlantic hurricane region.
Ranking hurricane landfalls
For weather experts, the president’s comment recalled memories of 2019, when he shared a forecast map for Hurricane Dorian from the National Hurricane Center that had been altered inaccurately with a marker to show Alabama in the forecast cone.
Cuba’s most recent hurricane
In October 2025, Hurricane Melissa took a terrifying trek through Jamaica, causing widespread destruction and flooding, and then turned its high winds toward Cuba.
Melissa brought heavy rainfall and flooding, damaging storm surge, and destructive winds to portions of eastern Cuba, just one month after the island was pounded by Hurricane Imelda a month earlier, the National Hurricane Center, part of the National Weather Service, concluded in its final report. “Melissa caused considerable damage, flooding and catastrophic landslides across eastern Cuba,” the hurricane center found.
“Streets were covered in debris, with uprooted trees, roofs off houses and flooding of entire towns, with over 900,000 homes damaged or destroyed,” the center added.
In the Santiago de Cuba province, housing damage was particularly severe, with 95,000 homes affected, 2,300 total collapses, and 6,000 complete roof failures. Two weeks after the storm, more than half the province remained without electricity.
Among the other damages reported:
- An oil refinery in Santiago de Cuba, as well as hospitals and medical facilities.
- The Antonio Maceo Airport, which took weeks to reopen.
- Hundreds of heads of cattle were lost.
- At the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, there were several downed trees and homes considered uninhabitable due to damage.
USA TODAY journalists Dinah Voyles Pulver and Jennifer Borresen have covered hurricanes and other violent weather for decades.
