Nadine and Oscar

Nadine and Oscar Form within Hours of Each Other

10/19/24 – Tropical Storm Nadine and Hurricane Oscar formed within hours of each other in the last 24 hours. Neither is a threat to Texas. But they put the Atlantic Basin over the average number of named storms it gets during hurricane season and near the low end of predictions made earlier this year.

Nadine (left) and Oscar (right) as of 2 PM CDT

Tropical Storm Nadine

Nadine formed near the Mexican coastline and will quickly move inland near the border with Belize. Nadine’s chances of formation had steadily increased over the last few days.

Hurricane Oscar

Oscar was a different story. Yesterday morning, the disorganized area of showers had only a 20% chance of formation. By this afternoon, it had turned into a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph hour winds. The small hurricane could strengthen some more today before weakening and dissipating next week.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward from Oscar up to 5 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles. At 2 PM, the eye was 3 miles wide.

Oscar could dump up to six inches of rain on Cuba, Turks and Caicos, and the Bahamas.

The National Hurricane Center predicts no additional tropical developments in the next seven days.

Season To Date

Earlier this year, forecasters predicted an extremely active hurricane season. These two storms – numbers 14 and 15 – put the season total near the low end of the range predicted by the NHC in May.

NOAA 2024 Hurricane Season Forecast

The table below shows the average number of storms in the Atlantic basin during the last three decades.

Average hurricane season stats

So far in the Atlantic Basin this year, we’ve had:

  • 15 named storms
  • 6 hurricanes (Debby, Ernesto, Francine, Isaac, Leslie, Oscar)
  • 4 major hurricanes (Beryl, Helene, Kirk and Milton)

And we still have six more weeks left in the season.

For an excellent recap of the season, including each storm within it, see the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season Page on Wikipedia. It contains narratives on each storm plus statistical tables.

The next storms, if they form, will be:

  • Patty
  • Rafael
  • Sara
  • Tony
  • Valerie
  • William

Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/19/24

2608 Days since Hurricane Harvey