Cuba is facing a 'humanitarian crisis' after Hurricane Oscar made landfall over the weekend. 

The storm caused the country's electrical grid to collapse for the fourth time in two days as residents are facing food and water shortages.

It has brought strong winds and heavy rain to the region and between six and 12 inches of rainfall are expected to reach the area by Wednesday, while parts of eastern Cuba could receive up to 20 inches of rain.

Excessive rainfall could lead to life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned on Monday.

Meteorologists have been tracking the storm's progress over the last week, which was expected to develop into a tropical depression over the weekend.

However, the NHC officially upgraded Oscar to a Category 1 hurricane at 2am ET on Sunday after reaching wind speeds of 85 miles per hour.

'Hurricane impacts to Cuba are extremely concerning because of the ongoing power grid crisis in Cuba,' said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter.

Meteorologists reported that the storm could also reach parts of North America, bringing heavy rain and gusts of wind. 

'Adding a hurricane hit on top of the existing power failure can make the hurricane impact far worse, further risking lives and resulting in challenges in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from the hurricane's impacts,' Porter said.

Hurricane Oscar made landfall about five miles west of Guantanamo shortly before 6pm ET on Sunday.

The NHC projects that it will continue to move across Cuba through this afternoon before moving southeast toward the Bahamas.

Meteorologists predicted the storm could intensify into a Category 2 hurricane by Sunday afternoon, but as of Monday morning, the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm when wind speeds decreased to about 45 miles per hour.

The NHC said it expects the storm to continue to weaken as it moves across Cuba's mountainous terrain but will likely still be a tropical storm as it moves toward the Bahamas.

'Some people were surprised by the quick intensification of the tropical rainstorm into Tropical Storm Oscar and then Hurricane Oscar on Saturday afternoon, but AccuWeather customers were not surprised,' Porter said. 

The NHC didn't declare that Oscar was a hurricane until hours after it made landfall. 

The AccuWeather team had been tracking the storm since October 14 and predicted it would develop into a tropical storm that would bring 'damaging winds and flooding rainfall to parts of the northern Caribbean,' Porter continued.

Meanwhile, the NHC said there was only a 10 percent chance that Oscar would increase into a more severe storm as recently as Friday afternoon.

A spokesperson for the NHC told TIME that Oscar's development into a hurricane was somewhat unexpected, adding: 'Unfortunately, the system kind of snuck up a little bit on us.'

Porter warned that the combination of heavy rainfall, flash flooding, mudslides and rockslides across the steep terrain of southeastern Cuba 'may result in a humanitarian crisis in some parts of southeast Cuba.'

AccuWeather has warned that the significant wind and flooding will likely damage small buildings, mobile homes and trees and cause continued power outages that could last for weeks.

Cubans have been in the dark since a power grid collapsed in Havana on Friday, impacting most of the country's 10 million people.

The government had restored power to only a fifth of residents by the following day but it collapsed again on Saturday evening and twice more on Sunday, resulting in people protesting the three-day-long blackout. 

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has since criticized the protests in a video posted on X, saying they have caused public disorder and 'we are not going to allow acts of vandalism and much less alter the tranquility of our people.'

Locals are also struggling to access fresh food and a steady water supply which has dwindled across the country.

People in Havana stood for hours in line to buy loaves of bread, which quickly sold out, and have been communicating with people on WhatsApp who still have power or generators to make arrangements for storing medication in their fridges.

While Cuba is expected to continue to be ravaged by rainfall through Wednesday, the eye of the storm - which is moving westward at two miles per hour - will move near the southeastern and central Bahamas within the next 24 hours.

The NHC expects the storm will cause localized flash flooding and bring three to five inches of rain, with some areas experiencing about eight inches.

AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Klines told DailyMail.com that 'there is a possibility that [Oscar] could make it all the way into eastern Canada,' but wouldn't reach the area until later Thursday or Friday.

He clarified that Oscar wouldn't be a tropical storm or hurricane by the time it reached North American and while it won't travel across land, 'they'll get the so-called back-end of the storm if it gets up that far.'

The US won't be affected by the storm, which will stay over the mid-Atlantic, Kline said, adding that 'a lot of things would really have to go wrong for this to impact the eastern part of the US. It's highly unlikely.'