Every week the latest episode in this groundbreaking series is available to steam straight to your computer. You can also get a behind the scenes look at each film by reading the directors comments.
By producer/Director Ben Summers
It's wonderful meeting anyone with a genuine passion and enthusiasm for their job, and weathermen seem to have a particular knack for it. And in a tropical country, nothing stirs their passions like a good hurricane. When disaster is looming, the weathermen come into their own.
In 2008, the tiny weather station at Los Palacios in Cuba recorded the highest hurricane windspeed ever. We nearly didn't visit the station, as what would there be to film a year after the storm? But when we went on to the roof to look at the wind instruments, we couldn't stop the whole local weather team following us up there. Even the portly gentleman whose job it had been to wedge himself against the door to stop it being blown in by the hurricane eventually made his way to the top of the ladder. And just one question to a certain Mr Izquierdo led to a rapid and exuberant soliloquy. I wasn't going to interrupt him and spoil his flow. The man was on a roll. This was his big moment.
Occasionally any list of questions becomes redundant and all that's needed is a 'go'. The passion of the moment is always better than ticking off answers. But I couldn't follow a word. My Spanish wasn't up to such an outpouring.
Eventually Mr Izquierdo stopped. I had no idea what he had said. I asked the translator. She didn't know where to start. It was impossible to go back over the material and have it translated there and then. But I had been able to hear the pride in his voice. And to see it in the faces of the men standing behind him. They were a part of meteorological history. I didn't need a translation. I knew that it had been a trip worth taking.
His final words, I now know, were, 'It was a windspeed that left everyone mesmerised.' His was a wordspeed that left me mesmerised: impossible to follow and difficult to edit. The ideal interviewee.
Violent changes in weather are one of the most dramatic features of climate change. In the Caribbean surviving massive storms during the hurricane season is part of everyday life. “Hot Cities” goes to Cuba, which has a well-rehearsed defence strategy and an effective early warning system at the Cuban National Forecasting Centre.
