Can’t do better than to quote the current forecast discussion from NHC:
It is fair to say its been an unexpected day with regards to Oscar.
That’s actually a bit of an understatement. I spent most of the day on the roof doing some long delayed post-Helene repairs to my solar panels and antennas, and wasn’t really expecting it to do much.
Oscar went from a 30% chance of being a depression to having observed hurricane force winds – albeit in a very small area – in less than a day. The satellite data does not show nearly as strong a storm, but the hurricane hunters flew in on short notice and found a very small core – only five miles across, small enough to fit in the eye of almost any normal hurricane. If you look at the last frame in the IR loop on the left you can see a very small pink area of very cold clouds. That’s where the core is.
Here are NHC’s latest Key Messages regarding Hurricane Oscar (en Español: Mensajes Claves).
Oscar still isn’t expected to do a lot of damage, but folks in the Turks and Caicos should prepare for hurricane conditions as advised. In theory Oscar shouldn’t even be a hurricane, or stay one for long, but none of the models (or forecasters) really have a handle on it. The track forecast, though, should be better behaved, and the storm should make a sharp right out to sea as shown on the forecast impact graphic:
Nadine (who is not Helene) has made landfall in Belize as a middle strength tropical storm, and should be raining out, which means flash flooding in the mountains of Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Will see how things look overnight!