After cutting across the Caribbean Sea this week, sideswiping Jamaica and passing through the Cayman Islands as a rapidly intensifying hurricane, Rafael made landfall in Cuba on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 3 hurricane. Rafael emerged into the Gulf of Mexico, as a Category 2 hurricane.
Forecasters are fairly confident that the hurricane will move across the Gulf of Mexico toward the western Gulf on Thursday and Friday, but they are still less certain of where it goes after that, as it approaches the United States or possibly Mexico.
As of Thursday morning, as the storm began to make a left-hand turn, here’s a look at where forecasters think the storm will head this week.
Thursday
Rafael was still a Category 2 storm Thursday morning and was beginning to slowly weaken further. The steering pattern seems to be stronger, and the official forecast predicts that the storm will cross across the southern Gulf of Mexico toward the west.
As Hurricane Rafael moves away from Cuba on Thursday it will continue to bring periods of heavy rain to western Cuba. Another two to four inches could fall, which may bring storm totals up to a foot across the country.
The strong storm while a good distance away from the United States could still produce swells over the next couple of days that could create life-threatening surf and rip current conditions along the Gulf Coast.
Friday
Originally forecasters thought that Rafael would weaken considerably on Friday but a more southerly path through the southern Gulf of Mexico is a more hospitable environment and the storm may maintain hurricane strength despite some slightly weakening.
Saturday
While still uncertain about the ultimate path Rafael will take, forecasters Thursday morning are leaning toward a more southern solution, which would turn the storm more toward Mexico late this weekend and early next week. If it were to take a turn toward the north, as some computer weather models indicate, forecasters believe the weather environment would be even more hostile, and the storm would weaken even faster than predicted.
Sunday
The current forecast from the National Hurricane Center shows the storm turning south toward the Bay of Campeche as a tropical storm and drifting toward the Mexico coast through the beginning of next week.
If Rafael where to turn north instead on Sunday, it is reasonably probable that the storm moves toward the U.S. coast, but if this occurred it is likely that it would weaken, possibly even dissipate, before a landfall in Texas or Louisiana early next week.
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