After forming this morning, Oscar has rapidly intensified into a hurricane. This storm has winds topping out at 80mph and it is moving west at 13mph. While this system will bring some heavy rains and gusty winds to Cuba and the Bahamas, it will begin to move out to sea by the middle of next week.

Things have been quickly evolving with a small area of low pressure located just to the east of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The system's structure had become much better organized than yesterday. Oscar is estimated to be moving due westward at 12mph. This motion should continue for the remainder of the day as the system is initially steered by a narrow mid-level ridge positioned to the north. However, a digging east-to-west longwave trough is soon expected to erode the eastward side of this ridge, causing Oscar to slowdown and potentially stall near the northeastern coast of Cuba in 36-48 hours. Thereafter, that same trough is expected to continue amplifying or even retrograde westward, and if Oscar is vertically deep enough, this should induce steering that brings the tropical cyclone northeastward.

While Oscar is a hurricane now, conditions will become less favorable in the coming days. Shear out of the northwest will increases quite rapidly, and there could also be some land interaction with Cuba that could disrupt the circulation. However Oscar is a very small tropical cyclone, and could be prone to rapid changes in intensity, both up and down. After 72 hours, the much larger trough is likely to absorb the small Oscar, with this occurring by the end of the forecast period by the middle of next week.

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