UPDATE: "Cutiecane" Oscar Hits Cuba, And It's Nothing To Laugh At

Satellite view of small but dangerous Hurricane Oscar
making landfall in eastern Cuba just before
local sunset. Flooding and landslides are its biggest threats.

Tiny little Hurricane Oscar, as expected, made landfall in Cuba at around 5:50 EDT p.m. today.  

The eye hit the city of Baracoa in Guantanamo province with maximum sustained winds of around 80 mph. 

Oscar grew a little larger in size today, but that's not saying much. Yesterday, hurricane force winds extended out only five miles from the eye in the center of the storm. 

Right before landfall today, those hurricanes force winds extended out ten miles from the eye.

That's still a damn small hurricane. So small that at least one wag and hurricane dubbed Oscar a "cutiecane."

 Oscar's effects on Cuba will be anything but cute, despite its small size. The storm could dump five to 10 inches of rain on parts of Cuba, with isolated areas receiving as much as 15 inches. 

That amount of rain is expected to fall because Hurricane Oscar has a slow forward speed and if anything is slowing down. That'll give it plenty of time to dump a lot of rain.

The storm is hitting a mountainous section of Cuba, which leads to a high risk of landslides and mudslides. 

Moreover, Cuba has been hit by two catastrophic electrical grid failures in recent days. The grid collapsed on Friday, and the government was beginning to restore power when the whole thing collapsed again Saturday. It's unclear when electricity will be restored to most of the island.

The power failures make it harder to prepare for and respond to the effects of Hurricane Oscar.

The storm is expected to linger over eastern Cuba until early Tuesday when it will start to drift north into the Bahamas. It's still unclear whether Oscar will survive over the rough terrain of Cuba. But if it does remain sort of intact, forecasts don't expect it to strengthen back into a hurricane. 

But given Oscar's surprising history, you never know.