October 20th 2024.
There's been quite a commotion in eastern Cuba as Hurricane Oscar has finally made its way to land. The island, already facing a major power outage, has been hit hard by this storm after it struck the southeastern Bahamas earlier in the day on Sunday. According to the US National Hurricane Center, the center of the storm has arrived in Guantanamo, near the city of Baracoa, late Sunday evening.
As the storm continues to move, its maximum sustained winds have been recorded to be around 80 mph. Forecasters predict that it will cross over eastern Cuba throughout the night and into Monday. With that, they also warn that the region can expect 6 to 12 inches of rain and some isolated areas may even receive up to 18 inches by early Wednesday. The storm surge of up to 3 feet along the north shore of Cuba is also a possibility, as stated by the center.
Oscar is expected to weaken as it moves over eastern Cuba before making a turn to the northeast towards the central Bahamas on Tuesday. Currently, the storm's center is located about 5 miles east-southeast of Baracoa and approximately 50 miles east-northeast of Guantanamo. Its current direction is west-southwest at a pace of 7 mph.
Prior to its arrival in Cuba, Hurricane Oscar had made landfall on Great Inagua island in the Bahamas. This arrival had caused a lot of concern for the southeastern Bahamas as it was expected to bring along with it a dangerous storm surge which could lead to significant coastal flooding. The forecast also predicted 2 to 4 inches of rainfall in the region, with some isolated areas getting up to 6 inches.
This storm comes at a time when Cuba is still trying to recover from a massive blackout that left millions without power for two days last week. Although some electrical services were restored on Saturday, the country is still facing its worst blackout in at least two years. And just when things seemed to be getting better, Hurricane Oscar came as a bit of a surprise for the National Hurricane Center. Philippe Papin stated that they were caught off guard by the storm, saying, "Unfortunately, the system kind of snuck up on us."
As if Oscar wasn't enough, Tropical Storm Nadine also formed off the southern Caribbean coast of Mexico earlier in the day. However, it quickly lost its strength and was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved over land.
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