Observations Cuba is dryer than I had expected. It is only 90 miles from Florida, so I thought it should be more tropical. In fact, the countryside looks more like Southern California. There is a six month dry season, from January through June. Havana and its surrounds are a little less arid than the interior and the east. And along the north coast in at least some places there are mangroves. I don't know how wet it is in the summer and fall, but the flora is more desert