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. 

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.