Hurricane Paloma hits Cuba

Hurricane Paloma, which the U.S. National Hurricane Center yesterday labeled as "extremely dangerous", has recently hit Cuba.

In preparation of this, at 1500 UTC yesterday, the Cuban provinces of Granma and Holguin were issued with a Hurricane warning by the country's government. Due to updated forecasts, it has also removed the waning for the province of Sancti Spiritus.

220,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in the Camaguey province, while 170,000 were evacuated from the province of Las Tunas.

The Hurricane is now weakening, however, with the NOAA stating that "continued weakening is expected over the next day or two, even after Paloma moves off the coast of Cuba."

The NOAA has also stated that "Paloma is expected to produce additional rainfall totals of 1 to 2 inches over eastern Cuba. Rainfall accumulations of 5 to 10 inches are possible over the central Bahamas."

Hurricane Paloma was the seventeenth tropical depression of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. Paloma developed out of a strong tropical disturbance off the northern coast of Honduras on November 5. The disturbance had slowly developed into a tropical depression. The depression then became a tropical storm then a hurricane.