Former Tropical Storm Rafael intensified to a hurricane near the Cayman Islands on Tuesday evening.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 19.7\u00b0N and longitude 80.4\u00b0W which put the center about 60 miles (95 km) east-northeast of Grand Cayman.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the northwest at 13 m.p.h. (20 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 95 m.p.h. (150 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 985 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac.\u00a0 A\u00a0 Hurricane Warning was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, Matanzas, and the Isle of Youth.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritis, and Ciego de Avila.<\/strong><\/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 Camaguey and Las Tunas.<\/span><\/p>\n Former Tropical Storm Rafael intensified to a hurricane on Tuesday evening.\u00a0 A circular eye with a diameter of 15 miles (17 km) formed at the center of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a ring of thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 Storms near the core of Rafael generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the hurricane.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n Winds to hurricane force extended out 20 miles (30 km) in the northeastern quadrant of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 Wind to tropical storm force extended out 115 miles (185 km) in the eastern side of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 60 miles (95 km) in the western side of Hurricane Rafael.<\/p>\n Hurricane 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.\u00a0 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 Hurricane Rafael will intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Rafael could intensify rapidly at times.<\/p>\n Hurricane 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 Hurricane Rafael will move away from the Cayman Islands.\u00a0 Rafael is likely to reach western Cuba by Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n Hurricane Rafael will continue to bring strong winds and heavy rain to the Cayman Islands for the next few hours.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause floods in some locations. Rafael could also cause a storm surge of up to 7 feet (2 meters) in the Cayman Islands.\u00a0 Hurricane Rafael will bring strong winds and heavy rain to western Cuba.\u00a0 Strong winds could cause widespread electricity outages in Cuba.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods in some locations.\u00a0 Rafael could cause a storm surge of up to 10 feet (3 meters) along the south coast of western Cuba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Tropical Storm Rafael intensified to a hurricane near the Cayman Islands on Tuesday evening.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 19.7\u00b0N and longitude 80.4\u00b0W which put the center about 60 miles (95 km) east-northeast of Grand Cayman.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the northwest at 13 […]<\/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":[865,866,3066,2337,2546,707,3662,2588,2548,145,51,50,2336,3798,2630,873,3067,2589,2545,3069,3068,3073,3797,2598,2599],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21540"}],"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=21540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21541,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21540\/revisions\/21541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}