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.

                  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.

                  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.