A tropical wave moved off of Africa on October 10. A low pressure center soon formed in association with the wave and the system trekked steadily across the tropical Atlantic. Along its journey, the low had a pretty well-defined center and was on the verge of tropical cyclone status multiple times, but was unable to muster enough convection to get there in a dry atmospheric environment. On October 18, the low passed just north of the greater Antilles and found another opportunity north of Hispaniola. It was finally named Tropical Storm Oscar during the morning of October 19.
Making up for lost time, Oscar ramped up quickly. Aircraft reconaissance found that the small storm had launched to category 1 hurricane strength by the same afternoon. A ridge north of the cyclone pushed it west-southwestward and the hurricane passed among the Turks and Caicos that evening, including a direct landfall on Great Inagua island early on October 20. The storm slowed down as it approached eastern Cuba that afternoon and made landfall near the country's eastern tip with maximum sustained winds fo 80 mph and a central pressure of 986 mb.
After landfall, Oscar stalled as the steering ridge was replaced by a trough that slowly turned it back toward the north. Its interaction with mountainous terrain weakened it quickly to a tropical storm and disrupted the circulation. During the afternoon of October 21, the storm finally reentered the Atlantic as a minimal tropical storm. It moved northeast into the Bahamas and brought some rain there, but atmospheric conditions had become much more hostile and Oscar was unable to improve its poorly defined structure. The cyclone ultimately dissipated the next day.
The image above shows tiny Oscar just after being upgraded to a category 1 hurricane. The storm was small but made multiple direct landfalls.
The track above shows the full path Oscar and its progenitor system (points where it was not a tropical cyclone are triangles). The system finally developed only near the end of its journey of thousands of miles.
No comments:
Post a Comment