Melissa Blasting Cuba, Jamaica Wakes Up To Devastation, And Some Science Behind The Storm

Image from the Weather Channel showing extreme
flooding in Jamaica from Hurricane Melissa.

Hurricane Melissa continued its rampage overnight, smashing through eastern Cuba with winds as high as 120 mph. 

That's better than the 185 mph that parts of Jamaica endured at landfall, but the wind and the incredible flooding just add to the pile of damages in the Caribbean from this incredible storm. 

The wind and rain is finally calming down in Jamaica, so they can start assessing where they stand after their "Storm of the Century."

Calling it that is actually a bit of an understatement. Hurricane Melissa was one of only six storms known in the Atlantic with winds of at least 185 mph. Only three known Atlantic storms - a 1935 hurricane in Florida, Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and Melissa had winds that strong at landfall. 

The National Hurricane Center will eventually review data from Hurricane Melissa to determine whether this stat is accurate. 

Some data suggests that Melissa's winds might have been even stronger, beating the all time record for high winds, which was set in 1980 during Hurricane Allen in the Gulf of Mexico. Those winds were 190 mph. 

As of this morning, we have no idea what the Jamaican death toll is. We only have reports from when the storm was ramping up - three dead.  We don't know what happened when the core of the storm buzz sawed through. 

I'm hoping Jamaica got really lucky in that respect. I imagine we'll learn more later today. 

The western half of Jamaica is especially devastated from the tornado-like winds and massive amounts of water that fell from the sky. Eastern Jamaica seems to be doing better. Video from the capitol, Kingston, shows that city to be largely intact. 

Given that so much of western Jamaica is in ruins, the island nation will need lots of help. Their government has set up a web site that allows people to report problems, the public to donate, and prioritize needs. 

Even the United States, where President Donald Trump does not like to help others, might step in. Trump said, "On a humanitarian basis, we have to. So we're watching it closely and we're prepared to move."

I'm sure there will be more details to come on Jamaican relief efforts. But be forewarned: There will also be a LOT of scammers pretending to be trying to help Jamaica. They'll just steal money that was donated. 

Do some research before donating, and give to reputable charities. 

Melissa's life is fortunately coming to an end soon. It's got one more big stop, in the southeast Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. It'll swipe past Bermuda Friday, and then it Melissa will die over the North Atlantic. 

Climate change is being accurate blamed for helping fuel Melissa. But it's more complicated than just climate change. 

True, the Caribbean water that Melissa passed over was the warmest on record, in part due to climate change. 

But also, unlike most years, there were no hurricanes in the Caribbean this year until Melissa. Hurricanes tend to bring cool water up from the depths. So a late season hurricane in the Caribbean would have normally encountered somewhat cooler water than Melissa did. 

If that were the case, Melissa wouldn't have gotten so strong. 

Melissa also moved forward very slowly, almost stalling at times, giving it more time to strengthen. 

More often that not, a slow moving storm like Melissa will eventually choke itself off from the warm water feeding it. A hurricane would draw cooler water to the surface, diminishing its potential power.  

This time, the Caribbean waters were unusually hot to a great depth beneath the surface. Melissa pulled water up from the deep. But that water was warm, too, so the storm kept on strengthening. 

Overall, the research group Climate Central said the conditions that turned Hurricane Melissa into such a monster were made up to 700 times more likely due to human caused climate change.  

One tiny bit of good news: As we approach the end of hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center does not see any potential new tropical storms or hurricanes for at least the next week, probably more. Maybe there won't even be any more, we hope. 

Hurricane Melissa Slams Jamaica, Now Waiting To Learn The Toll. Likely Will Be Awful

 Hurricane Melissa kept strengthening right until landfall. 

Hurricane hunter planes measuring the strength of
Hurricane Melissa had this view of the storm
inside the eye yesterday 

Sustained winds blew at 185 mph at landfall, something very few people in the world have had the trauma of experiencing.

 In the western hemisphere, perhaps only a couple of hurricanes have made landfall with winds that strong. 

Melissa came ashore midday near New Hope, about 75 miles west of the Kingston, the Capitol of Jamaica. 

It had to be terrifying. Safe here on a bright, blue sky gorgeous late fall day here in Vermont, my heart rate is up just thinking about what those Jamaicans are going through today. 

Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite internet service, will be free for now in Jamaica and the Bahamas so people can get the word out, and tell loved ones who lived, who died. 

Still, won't get a lot of details on death toll, the extent of damage, and recovery right away. In western Jamaica, it's too dangerous to go outside and look.  People will also be just trying to survive. Most won't have time to chat with reporters or post updates online. 

Where Melissa hit square on in southwest Jamaica, the storm was the equivalent of a high end EF-3 or EF-4 tornado. Except tornadoes last only a few minutes and are usually no more than a mile wide  This "tornado" probably lasted more than an hour at least, and was probably 20 to 30 miles wide. 

Imagine your house getting hit by a tornado with 185 mph winds. There wouldn't be all that much left. Now imagine your house getting hit by a dozen or more of such tornadoes, one after another. 

How do you even survive such a thing?

Houses surely disintegrated in the midst of Melissa.   I don't know how many people made it to a hopefully safe shelter and how many stayed in their vulnerable homes.

Most people would be blown off their feet in winds and knocked to the ground in winds of 80 mph.  I don't know for sure if this is accurate, but Google AI says a 180 mph wind is enough launch a person into the air. 

Then those people would become like the rest of the debris flying through the air, trees, branches, planks, sheet metal, siding, roofs. The chances of surviving outdoors in that are pretty much zero. 

The National Hurricane Center was advising people near the eye of Hurricane Melissa to hide under mattresses in an interior room and wear a helmet.  "The best thing you can do is put as many walls as possible between you and the outside," the NHC said. 

Satellite view of Hurricane Melissa late this
afternoon shows the eye has filled in with
clouds as the mountains of Jamaica 
begin to weaken the still
formidable storm. 

Hurricane Melissa had been forecast for a couple days to make landfall in southwestern Jamaica. I'm hoping everyone who could fled to eastern Jamaica. 

The eastern part of the island is having an incredibly tough go at it too. But at least the winds in the east are probably not strong enough to destroy all buildings. Sturdy ones should hold up.   

Images that are coming out of Jamaica are showing catastrophic flooding, with rapidly flowing water in some

As of 5 p.m., Hurricane Melissa was still centered over western Jamaica, heading northeast with top winds of 145 mph.  The mountainous terrain is starting to damage the hurricane, thank gawd. That's down to an intense category 4 hurricane, no longer, a category 5. 

RECORD SETTING

It's unusual for a hurricane to keep on strengthen right up until landfall, but Melissa did. The most recent, dramatic example of a hurricane doing this that I can think of was Category 5 Hurricane Michael, which hit Florida in 2018. 

It looks like Hurricane Melissa probably tied the record for the Atlantic basin for the highest winds and lowest central air pressure at landfall. The air pressure was 892 millibars in the eye, which is an incredibly intense hurricane. 

The reason I say "probably" is because scientists will need to study data after the fact to determine whether the sort of off the cuff measurements taken today are accurate.

WHAT'S NEXT

Hurricane Melissa is still headed toward eastern Cuba, where it will hit tonight with winds as high as 145 mph.  Obviously incredibly nasty flooding is going to happen there, too. 

The hurricane will be weakening, and increasing its forward speed tomorrow as it blasts the southeast Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos. But it will still be a dangerous storm. 

Hurricane Melissa is still throwing lots of moisture at Hispaniola, so Haiti and parts of the Dominican Republic should continue to experience catastrophic flooding tonight. 

The weakening hurricane should sideswipe Bermuda early Friday. As Melissa finally dies over the North Atlantic Friday, it will send some moisture into an otherwise unrelated storm over the Northeast, which will probably make rainfall heavier than it otherwise would be. .

CLIMATE CHANGE STRIKES AGAIN

Hurricane Melissa is the latest in a remarkable string of Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic in recent years. Melissa was the third such hurricane this year. The other two missed land, but our luck ran out with Melissa. 

This hurricane meandered over record warm Caribbean water for days before striking Jamaica, allowing it to strengthen as it did. I mentioned this yesterday, but it's worth repeating. Expect plenty more Melissas in the future. 

Per CNN:

"Hurricane Melissa's intensification into the strongest storm on Earth so far this year, and one of the strongest storms on record in the Atlantic Ocean, was field buy unusually hot ocean temperatures in the Caribbean. 

The storms underwent two periods of rapid intensification, with its maximum sustained winds first jumping from 70 mph on Saturday morning to 140 mph just 24 hours later. Then, from Sunday afternoon through Monday afternoon its peak winds spiked again, going from 140 to mph to 175 mph.

Such bouts of rapid intensification are becoming more frequent as the climate warms. Hurricane Melissa is only the latest in a sting of intense Atlantic hurricanes this year to undergo such extreme rapid strengthening. 

According to the climate science research group Climate Central, the ocean temperatures in the vicinity of Hurricane Melissa's path were about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit above average for this time of year. 

The group calculated that along the entire path of the storm so far, the unusually hot sea surface temperatures were at least 500 to 800 times more likely due to global warming."

 

Grim Day In Caribbean As Extreme Hurricane Melissa Nears Jamaica Landfall

Close up satellite view of Hurricane Melissa's eye
nearing southwestern Jamaica at dawn this morning. 

 UPDATE 9 a.m.

It's even worse now.

A recent update just in has maximum winds up to 180 mph, and central pressure down to 896 millibars.

This now tentatively makes this the fifth or sixth most intense hurricane in the Atlantic on record.

Landfall will be within just a few hours 

I'm dreading the news later today from Jamaica.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Hurricane Melissa sank to ridiculous extremes overnight, with winds staying at 175 mph on its approach to Jamaica.  

That the storm has maintained that incredible intensity since at least early yesterday afternoon is really something to dreadfully behold.

 The central pressure this morning in the eye of Hurricane Melissa was 901 millibars, making it the seventh strongest hurricane on record anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean. 

The updates are now coming so fast and furiously now that it's hard to keep up. But we'll give you a good idea and summary of what's going on. 

THIS MORNING'S SITUATION

Winds of tropical storm strength were lashing Jamaica at dawn. Those will quickly go to hurricane force by mid to late morning ahead of an expected landfall early this afternoon.

It's going to be a brutal day in Jamaica to say the least. 

Winds of 175 mph at landfall would flatten pretty much everything. There's a chance Melissa could "weaken" slightly before landfall, but as a practical matter, it won't make a difference.  Winds of, say 165 mph would have pretty much the same effect as winds 10 mph higher.  

To give you an idea how bad it is in there, hurricane hunter planes reportedly detected a gust to 241 mph just 700 feet off the surface offshore of Jamaica last night. 

Once Melissa makes landfall, the effects of hills and mountains can make the hurricane winds locally gust to 1.5 times the overall wind speed. Meaning some pockets in the Jamaican mountains could see gusts to 250 mph. We'll never know for sure, as there are few wind gauges to measure and probably none of those gauges would survive such winds.  

A wider visible satellite image of extreme 
Hurricane Melissa shortly after dawn today. 

The only good news is the area of hurricane force winds only extend out 30 miles or so from the eye. That means eastern Jamaica will escape the worst of the winds, but not the worst of the flooding. The water and landslides will be catastrophic island-wide.

Melissa is still moving pretty slowly, with a forward speed of just 5 mph. Most hurricanes, on average move at 10 to 15 mph. 

The slow movement means the extreme rains from Melissa will linger over Jamaica, and neighboring Haiti and Dominican Republic, longer than usual for a hurricane. That would make the terrible flooding with the hurricane even worse.  

I've been watching live cams from Jamaica, at least until the power goes out there. One of them shows the Flat Bridge over the Rio Cobre River in Spanish Town, Jamaica. As of around dawn, the river was a torrent, very high, muddy, full of debris. This was before the intense part of Hurricane Melissa arrived.

Imagine how bad the flooding will be after another one to three feet of rain crashes down on Jamaica today. 

The advice to Jamaicans from the U.S. National Hurricane Center is still dire:

"Remain sheltered! Catastrophic flash flooding, landslides and destructive winds will continue through today, causing widespread infrastructure damage, power and communications outages, and isolated communities. Total structural failure is possible near the path of Melissa's center. Along the southern coast, life-threatening storm surge and damaging waves are expected through the day. Failure to act may result in serious injury or loss of of life."

On social media, hotel guests reported they are on lockdown. They've been advised to shove mattresses against the windows and huddle behind closed doors in the bathroom during the worst of the storm. 

The social media posts from Jamaica are already frightening. Virtuallywithdee on Threads, has been live posting her experiences with the storm. At 6:15 a.m. she posted:

"The updates are coming faster because I honestly can't believe what I'm seeing. The rain is pouring like someone's throwing buckets of water nonstop - the downpour is wild. Electricity is flickering in and out, and the mobile service is getting spotty. The wind is giving me chills... and she still hasn't even arrived yet."

HORRIBLE DAY AHEAD

Media reports and social media will probably go dark later this morning and stay that way for quite a while after as electricity and cell service collapses in the hardest hit areas. 

I'm worried sick about the fate of Jamaicans. CNN tells us the International Federation of the Red Cross says it expects 1.5 million people - more than half of Jamaica's population - to be directly affected by Hurricane Melissa. 

The worst effects will be across western Jamaica.  The Capitol, Kingston is in the eastern third of the island and expects peak wind gusts of 70 to 85 mph with up to 16 inches of rain. As of 7 a.m. wind was already gusting to 59 mph in Kingston. 

Montego Bay, in northwest Jamaica, should expect peak winds gusts of 100 to 140 mph and up to 20 inches of rain. Scary, indeed.

CUBA 

The worst conditions in eastern Cuba should hit later today and through tonight. 

In Santiago de Cuba, peak wind gusts are forecast to be in the 100 to 120 mph range, with about a foot of rain. Some nearby hillsides could see two feet of rain. 

Heavy rain is already falling in Cuba and that should get worse through the day. 

HAITI/DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Hurricane Melissa is passing to the west of these two nations, but it's still having a catastrophic effect there, especially in Haiti. Extreme flash floods and landslides are likely there this week. Tropical storm force winds will also hit Haiti. 

Several deaths have already been reported in Haiti due to flooding and landslides. 

Hurricane Melissa is still forecast to smash through the southeastern Bahamas tomorrow and Thursday before heading into the open Atlantic. It could lash Bermuda with strong winds early Friday before it races into the cold northern Atlantic Ocean where it will finally die over the weekend.  

Hurricane Melissa Category 5 This Morning, Jamaica Is In BIG Trouble

Satellite view of Hurricane Melissa this morning
The pinpoint eye is a sure sign of an incredibly'
intense hurricane that will hit Jamaica.

 Hurricane Melissa was upgraded to Category 5 this morning, with top winds of 160 mph had its sights on Jamaica as it crawls across the superheated waters of the Caribbean Sea. 

Those very warm waters are fueling Melissa's strength and the hurricane's strength won't change all that much before the eye reaches Jamaica Tuesday morning. 

The advice from the National Hurricane Center to Jamaicans was harsh:

"Do not venture out of your safe shelter. Catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides are likely today through Tuesday. 

Destructive winds, especially in the mountains, will begin this evening, leading to extensive infrastructural damage, long-lasting power and communication outages, and isolated communities. Life-threatening storm surge and damaging waves are expected along the southern coast through Tuesday."

This will be the strongest, worst hurricane on record for Jamaica. Despite its hurricane-prone location in the western Caribbean, Jamaica has never been hit by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, though several hurricanes have affected the island. 

The worst hurricane in Jamaica until now was Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. That high end Category 3 storm killed 45 people and caused $700 million in damage. 

This hurricane is the third this year to achieve Category 5 in the Atlantic this year. Only 2005 had more such monsters. 

Hurricane Melissa might or might not be Category 5 when it makes landfall in Jamaica. Intense hurricanes usually re-adjust the circle of intense thunderstorms and winds around the eye, and those readjustments can sometimes briefly and slightly weaken a hurricane.

So Melissa could end up being a Category 4 by the time it reaches Jamaica. If that happens, top winds would be 130 to 156 mph, not the 160 mph Melissa carried this morning.  But if Melissa weakens ever so slightly, it won't matter. 

As the National Hurricane Center noted this morning: "Both categories can produce catastrophic wind damage. In addition, winds in the mountains of Jamaica are likely to be higher than the winds at sea level, and are likely to add to the seriousness of the situation."

Tropical storm conditions are hitting Jamaica already. Webcams this morning showed gusty winds and rough surf in Kingston's harbor and in other areas.

They've already had bursts of torrential rain, and that will continue with increasing intensity well into tomorrow.  Flooding is already ongoing, and the landslides and floods will become catastrophic. 

As I noted yesterday, I don't know what will happen to people who are in their safe space, only for a landslide to destroy it. How will they move to another safe place in winds of more than 100 mph with debris flying through the air. 

The worst winds will come within a 30 to 50 mile radius on Jamaica, which is roughly 150 miles wide and 50 miles long.  It looks like the worst effects of Melissa will hit the western and maybe central parts of the island.

So parts of Jamaica will thankfully miss the worst of the winds, at least in low elevations,  but all of Jamaica will suffer through the floods. Up to three and a half feet of rain is likely in some parts of Jamaica. 

The Jamaican coastline, at least parts of it, can expect a storm surge of nine to 13 feet. That's potentially high enough to flood the nation's main airport in the capitol, Kingston. 

AFTER JAMAICA

Part of the destructive force of Hurricane Melissa is the fact that it is moving forward so slowly. That would prolong the destructive force of the rain and winds.

Once Hurricane Melissa gets past Jamaica, it will slowly start to weaken, and pick up forward speed. But it will still be a major hurricane by the time it reaches eastern Cuba early Wednesday, with expected winds of 120 mph.  Melissa will then move on into the southeastern Bahamas later Wednesday or early Thursday. 

By Friday, Melissa will be racing northeastward near Bermuda, then it will finally die in the North Atlantic. 

While Melissa is far out in the Atlantic Ocean,  an unrelated nor'easter will be developing along the East Coast. That nor'easter might siphon deep moisture from Hurricane Melissa and make the rain especially heavy along parts of the East Coast.

It's unclear if that for sure will happen, and if so, where. Up here in Vermont, the nor'easter will very likely bring us some badly needed rain, but so far it looks like the really heavy rain might avoid the Green Mountain State.

Meanwhile, back in the Caribbean, Haiti and the Dominican Republic won't be directly hit by Hurricane Melissa. But it's close enough to have dumped a lot of rain on those countries and will continue to do so. 

Horrific flooding will continue there for the next couple days.  There have already been at least three deaths in Haiti because of the heavy rain and flooding. 

Hurricane Erin Update: It Maintains Its Power. North Carolina Evacuations As Storm Surge, Tropical Storm Watch Issued

This afternoon's satellite view of Hurricane Erin,
Tropical storm and storm surge watches just
went up for coastal North Carolina. 

Hurricane Erin continues to cause a lot of headaches and worries, especially for a storm that will not make landfall.  

As of 5 p.m. today, Hurricane Erin's top winds were still at 140 mph, up from 125 mph on Sunday. It was catered about 815 miles, south, southeast of Cape Hatteras and moving toward the northwest at 10 mph.

A tropical storm and storm surge watch were issued late this afternoon for much of Cape Hatteras/the Outer Banks as winds there should reach at least 39 mph when Erin makes its closest approach Wednesday night and Thursday.

To nobody's surprise, evacuation orders went up for the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Hurricane Erin will not make direct landfall in the United States. But the power of Erin, and its expanding wind field, will stir up enormous waves.

Under a Dare County, North Carolina emergency order, tourists to the outer banks were told to start getting out by 10 a.m. today. Permanent residents need to start leaving by 8 a.m. tomorrow.  Long lines of cars could be seen today on Route 12, heading north off Hatteras Island to destinations inland. 

The problem for North Carolina is that Hurricane Erin is already larger in size than most hurricanes, and it's getting even bigger.  As of late this afternoon, hurricane force winds of 74 mph or more extended out 80 miles from the center and those tropical storm winds go out 230 miles from the center. 

Although Erin is generally moving in the direction forecasters have said for days it would, the hurricane will pass a little closer to Cape Hatteras than meteorologists thought a few days ago. So that makes the impacts a little worse than originally thought. 

All these factors mean waves of 15 to 20 or more feet are forecast to slam into the Outer Banks, which would cause terrible erosion, flooding and destruction of coastal homes and other buildings,

The only real way in or out of the Outer Banks is Route 12. Emergency managers are sure the road will be inundated and impassable as Erin blows by.   If anybody stays behind, emergency responders won't be able to reach them. That's why they're kicking everybody out of the Outer Banks. 

In Rodanthe, North Carolina, at least two homes are in grave danger of collapsing into the ocean when Erin passes through. More than a dozen homes have fallen into the ocean since 2020, including six last year. 

Sea level rise and increasingly ferocious storms due to climate change are at least partly to blame for all this. Additionally the land in the region is slowly sinking as well.

There are unconfirmed reports of 50 rescues at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina today already due to high surf and rip currents. 

Erin might be weakening a tiny bit late this afternoon, thanks to some dry air the hurricane gulped in today from the north. But the weakening will either stop, or be so slow as to not make a difference on how it affects North Carolina, or anyplace else for that matter. 

Tropical storm conditions are already hitting or soon will hit the Turks and Caicos, and much of the Bahamas. It'll also eventually get stormy in Bermuda. 

In Puerto Rico, the outer rain bands of Erin were enough to bring winds and rains heavy enough to cut power to 50,000 customers. The Virgin Islands also dealt with gales and flooding Sunday.

Dangerous surf, rip currents and waves are expected up and down the entire United States East Coast and most of Canada's east coast as well this week.  

 

Teeny Tiny Hurricane Oscar Is The Weirdest And Most Surprising Hurricane Of The Year

Visible satellite view of itty-bitty Hurricane Oscar
approaching the northeastern coast of 
Cuba Sunday morning.

 Meteorologists are still agog over Hurricane Oscar, which abruptly formed Saturday southeast of the Bahamas.  

The storm is extremely weird because nobody even expected it to form. And when it did, it turned out to be one of the tiniest hurricanes on record. 

THE SURPRISE

What would become Hurricane Oscar was a struggling disturbance that spent several days crossing the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Africa to a spot southeast of the Bahamas Saturday morning. 

Just before dawn Saturday, the National Hurricane Center gave the disturbance a mere 10 percent chance of becoming a weak tropical depression or storm.

By late morning, it had turned into a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center and other experts are remarkably good at sniffing out days in advance when a disturbance would turn into a hurricane, so this was a stunning miss. 

Just proves that not everything about the atmosphere is completely understood just yet.

TINY OSCAR

Once Oscar formed it proved to be remarkably tiny. 

Even though top winds were 85 mph late Saturday afternoon, hurricane force winds extended out only five miles from the eye at the center of the storm.  Tropical storm force winds only went out 40 miles from the center. 

The only example people could find of a smaller tropical system was Tropical Storm Marco in October, 2008, which never reached hurricane status. Its-bitsy Marco's tropical storm force winds only extended out 11.5 miles from its center when it was off the Mexican coast. 

For perspective, if the eye of Hurricane Oscar was over Waterfront Park in Burlington on the shores of Lake Champlain last evening, hurricane force winds would extend out only as far as a little east of the Patrick Leahy International Airport in South Burlington. Tropical storm force winds would only extend to a little south of Middlebury, and folks in Rutland would wonder what all the fuss was about.  

Hurricane Oscar was so diminutive that noted hurricane chaser Josh Morgerman dubbed the storm a "cutiecane."

Morgerman said he's not chasing this one in large part because of its minuscule size. Really small hurricanes are prone to rapid intensity changes. They can blow up fast, like it did Saturday, but they can also fall apart much more rapidly than normal sized hurricanes. 

Early this morning, Hurricane Oscar had not grown any larger than it was Saturday, and made a brief landfall on Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas with top winds of 80 mph. Forecasters say it should remain a hurricane as it reaches the coast of northeastern Cuba later today.

The rough terrain of that section of Cuba should really rough little Oscar up, and it should weaken.  Forecasters think it will then turn north, then northeast and push through the Bahamas as a tropical storm tomorrow and Tuesday. 

Of course, that forecast is super iffy, given its minuscule size. Plus, hostile upper level winds might well develop, which tend to quickly tear small tropical systems apart. Teeny-weeny Oscar might not survive Cuba at all.

Oscar will not threaten the United States. There are also no signs of any new tropical storms or hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean after Oscar for at least a week.

 Little Hurricane Oscar is also notable because it was part of a weirdly busy stretch of activity in the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach noted Oscar was the eighth named Atlantic storm to form after September 24.  

That's the most tropical storms and hurricanes on record to form in the Atlantic Ocean between September 24 and October 19. 

Two Tropical Storm Surprises Today, But No Threat To The United States

Very small, but well organized Tropical Storm Oscar
abruptly formed this morning and was just shy of 
hurricane status by mid-afternoon north of Hispaniola.

 All of a sudden this morning, we had two new tropical storms in the Atlantic basin - one is named Nadine, the other is Oscar.  

Nadine was only a semi-surprise, but Oscar seemed to come out of nowhere. 

NADINE

For days before Nadine formed, the storm was the subject of social media rumor mongering and click bait farming.

The story, meant to illicit fear and inspire lots of social media clicks and therefore income, was that Nadine would form somewhere off the Central American coast, become powerful, and make a beeline toward Florida, just as catastrophic hurricanes Helene and Milton did.

The meteorologists who know better weren't nearly as alarmed. For good reason. Sure enough, Nadine formed off the Central American coast yesterday, then headed westward to make landfall near Belize City, Belize late this morning.

Before landfall, ocean waters beneath Nadine were quite warm and atmospheric conditions were favorable, so it managed to attain top winds of 60 mph at landfall. But it's moving inland now, and will become a rain and probably flood maker down in that neck of the woods.

It'll dissipate over southern Mexico by sometimes tomorrow. Upper level patterns and a cold front that plunged deeply into the Gulf of Mexico has prevented, and will prevent, any movement of Nadine northward. So no threat to the United States

OSCAR

Oscar the Grouch, as I'm calling this one, is arguably the biggest surprise of a very surprising hurricane season.

Since last week, a disturbance has been staggering westward across the Atlantic Ocean, never finding a way to develop into something stronger. As of yesterday, the National Hurricane Center was giving this lame thing just a 10 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression or storm.

Until it did.

Out of seemingly nowhere this morning, the very lame disturbance organized into a tropical storm. Since then, it's been developing fast and actually has a shot at becoming a short lived hurricane.

As of 11 a.m., the National Hurricane Center had Tropical Storm Oscar's top winds at 40 mph. But satellite imagery and some preliminary reports from hurricane hunters early this afternoon indicated the storm was powering up rapidly. By 1:15 p.m., Oscar's top wind speed had been updated to 70 mph.  

Oscar is a tiny little thing in terms of size. Tropical storm force winds only extended out 35 miles from the center of this thing.

Very small tropical storms and hurricanes have a tendency to get stronger more quickly than bigger storms. They also weaken much more quickly than larger systems. 

That'll make the strength of this thing hard to predict over the next couple days.

Oscar has prompted tropical storm warnings for the Turks and Caicos islands, southeastern Bahamas and parts of Cuba. It's moving generally westward, and is forecast to be near northeastern Cuba by Sunday night.

That cold front and a dip in the jet stream looks like it will protect Florida from whatever Tropical Storm Oscar becomes. The dip in the jet stream should eventually turn Oscar to the north, then northeast, so it would avoid Florida entirely.

The weird Atlantic hurricane season of 2024 continues on!