Hurricane Oscar made landfall on the northern coast of eastern Cuba on Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center said.
The hurricane made landfall in the Cuban province of Guantanamo near the town of Baracoa around 5:50 p.m., the hurricane center said.
At the time of landfall, Oscar had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph.
Oscar, which the National Hurricane Center classified as “compact but powerful,” formed off the coast of the Bahamas on Saturday, prompting a hurricane warning for the northern coast of Cuba’s Holguin and Guantanamo provinces, as far as the island’s eastern tip. , Punta de Maisi.
The Category 1 storm is moving west-southwest at 7 mph, the hurricane center said.
Oscar is expected to move across eastern Cuba on Sunday night into Monday and move northeast across the central Bahamas on Tuesday.
“After landfall, Oscar is expected to weaken, but may still become a tropical storm as it moves north of Cuba late Monday and across the central Bahamas on Tuesday,” the center said earlier Sunday.
In Cuba, the power line went down twice in 24 hours, with storm warnings and watches to deal with the impact. In addition to hurricane warnings, the northern coast of the Cuban province of Las Dunas was under both a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for the southeastern Bahamas and the southern coast of Guantanamo, and a tropical storm watch was in effect for the northern coast of Camagüey province.
Hurricane conditions and heavy rain are expected to hit eastern Cuba Sunday night, the hurricane center said.
The center said rainfall could reach 5 to 10 inches in eastern Cuba, with up to 15 inches in some places. The southeastern Bahamas could see 3 to 8 inches of rain, and the Turks and Caicos could see 2 to 4 inches by Wednesday morning.
A storm surge of about 1 to 3 feet is expected along Cuba’s northern coast, with “large and destructive waves” near the coast.
