A summary of hurricane Omar


Hurricane Omar - the "wrong way" hurricane
Hurricane Omar began as a large mass of showers and storms in the eastern Caribbean Sea during the weekend of October 11-12. Heavy rain began over Puerto Rico, but abated as a tropical disturbance slowly drifted south. A tropical depression formed a few hundred miles north of the Netherlands Antilles by Monday. Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao are only very rarely affected by tropical storms or hurricanes as they are south of the normal track that hurricanes follow. A band of heavy showers and storms formed over the islands bringing rain that lasted for a few days. Not only was soaking rain reported, but southerly swell pounded the north coasts of the islands.

The twenty four hour period from Tuesday night to Wednesday night saw Omar go from being classified as a category 1 hurricane to a 125 mph category 3 hurricane. It started moving northeast toward the Virgin Islands and northern Leeward Islands. Omar's hurricane force winds covered a small area, so that St. Croix didn't experience strong winds as it passed just east of the island. Omar continued east of the Virgin Islands overnight with strong winds causing some minor damage in the northern Leeward Islands, as it passed to the west of Anguilla and St. Martin / St. Maarten Thursday morning. Strong upper air winds sheared Omar during the day Thursday to cause it to weaken rapidly and resemble more of a mid latitude system than hurricane.

Hurricane Omar will be remembered for being only the second "wrong way" hurricane in the Caribbean in recent memory. It moved southwest to northeast, as opposed to the more normal east to west motion that most hurricanes follow. The other was hurricane Lenny, another category 3 hurricane from 1999. Omar will also be remembered for mostly missing the northern islands of the Caribbean. The destructive winds of 125 mph winds only covered a small range and moved in between St. Croix and St. Martin / St. Maarten.

Do you want to find out more about other hurricanes of 2008? Check out our 2008 hurricane summaries.