Former Tropical Depression Eighteen strengthened to Tropical Storm Rafael south of Jamaica on Monday afternoon.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Monday the center of Tropical Storm Rafael was located at latitude 15.5\u00b0N and longitude 76.7\u00b0W which put the center about 175 miles (280 km) south of Kingston, Jamaica.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the north at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 997 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for Jamaica.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n A Hurricane Watch was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, Matanzas, and the Isle of Youth.<\/span><\/p>\n A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for the Florida Keys from Key West to Channel 5 Bridge.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for the Dry Tortugas.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritis, Ciego de Avila, Camaguey and Las Tunas.<\/span><\/p>\n Former Tropical Depression Eighteen strengthened on Monday afternoon and the U.S. National Hurricane Center designated the system as Tropical Storm Rafael.\u00a0 The circulation around Tropical Storm Rafael was organizing rapidly.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the center of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 More thunderstorms formed near the center of circulation.\u00a0 More thunderstorms also developed in bands revolving around the center of Tropical Storm Rafael.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Rafael generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away fro the tropical storm.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Rafael will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Rafael will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C. It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge over the Caribbean Sea.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the middle of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Rafael will intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Rafael could intensify rapidly at times.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Rafael is likely to strengthen to a hurricane on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Rafael will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system over the western Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Rafael toward the northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Tropical Rafael will pass near Jamaica on Monday night.\u00a0 Rafael\u00a0 will reach the Cayman Islands by Tuesday night.\u00a0 Rafael is likely to reach western Cuba by Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Rafael will bring strong winds and heavy rain Jamaica. Heavy rain is likely to cause floods in some locations.\u00a0 Rafael is likely to be a hurricane when it moves over the Cayman Islands.\u00a0 Rafael will bring strong winds and heavy rain to the Cayman Islands.\u00a0 It could also cause a storm surge of up to 7 feet (2 meters) in the Cayman Islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Tropical Depression Eighteen strengthened to Tropical Storm Rafael south of Jamaica on Monday afternoon.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Monday the center of Tropical Storm Rafael was located at latitude 15.5\u00b0N and longitude 76.7\u00b0W which put the center about 175 miles (280 km) south of Kingston, Jamaica.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the north at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[865,866,3066,2337,2546,707,3662,2588,2548,145,3247,51,50,2336,2630,448,873,3067,2589,2545,3069,3068,3073,3797,2598,3796,2599],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21530,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529\/revisions\/21530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}