NASA image of Hurricane Oscar
By Brian K. Sullivan and Jim Wyss (Bloomberg) Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas and is forecast to strike in eastern Cuba on Sunday afternoon, the US National Hurricane Center said.
Oscar came ashore early Sunday with top winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour, making it a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step, Saffir-Simpson scale, the agency said in an advisory. The storm is expected to drop as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain across eastern Cuba and may lift ocean levels by 4 feet.
Hurricane and tropical storm warnings are in place across parts of Cuba and the Bahamas.
“Heavy rainfall from Oscar will lead to areas of flash flooding along with possible mudslides across portions of eastern Cuba,” said Robbie Berg, a forecaster with the US storm center.
Oscar is the 15th storm named in the Atlantic, bringing the seasonal total to just above the long-term average of 14. Cuba has been plagued with widespread power outages in recent days because of problems with its electric grid, and Oscar likely won’t help that situation.
Cuba President Miguel Diaz-Canel issued an alert along the island’s north-eastern coast stretching from Camaguey to Guantanamo, and said the government would be handling the effects of the storm “and the energy situation.”
The island of 11 million people has been largely without electricity since Friday morning, after one its main power plants failed. On Saturday, officials said they had restored almost 680 megawatts of energy only to have the grid collapse again — for the third time — at about 10:15 p.m.
Oscar is a very small hurricane, with winds of 74 mph or more only extending 5 miles from its center and tropical-storm strength winds reaching out 45 miles. As such, its course is more subject to change and the storm may be disrupted by the high elevations across Cuba.
After it strikes Cuba, Oscar is forecast to nearly reverse direction and head northeast back through the Bahamas by Tuesday. It isn’t expected to be a threat to the US mainland.
By Brian K. Sullivan and Jim Wyss © 2024 Bloomberg L.P.
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