Hurricane Oscar, now downgraded to a tropical storm over Cuba, has been noted as the smallest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. Meteorologists discovered that Oscar’s hurricane wind field was only 5-6 miles across when it formed on Saturday. This makes Oscar not only the smallest hurricane of the 2024 hurricane season but also the smallest hurricane ever known since observational records of hurricane wind fields began in the mid-1960s.
The small size of Oscar allowed it to initially evade detection by satellites and weather models. The storm’s advanced strength was only discovered when a hurricane hunter aircraft penetrated its core. Prior to Oscar, the smallest Atlantic storm on record was Tropical Storm Marco in 2008.
Though Oscar officially peaked as a Category 1 hurricane over the weekend, high-resolution wind estimates suggest it could have been as strong as a Category 2 or 3 hurricane before striking eastern Cuba. The storm is expected to bring heavy rainfall, flash flooding, and mudslides to parts of eastern Cuba and the southeastern Bahamas.
In the United States, powerful waves from Oscar could impact East Coast beaches in the coming days. Oscar formed shortly after Tropical Storm Nadine, which made landfall in Belize before dissipating in southern Mexico. The situation is being closely monitored by meteorologists and the National Hurricane Center.
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