Hurricane Rafael was approaching western Cuba on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 21.4\u00b0N and longitude 81.9\u00b0W which put the center about 130 miles (210 km) south-southeast of Havana, Cuba.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the northwest at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 110 m.p.h. (175 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 130 m.p.h. (210 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 960 mb.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0 Hurricane Warning is 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 is in effect for the Cuban provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritis, and Ciego de Avila.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the Florida Keys from Key West to Channel 5 Bridge.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the Dry Tortugas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Hurricane Rafael began to intensify more rapidly on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 Two concentric eyewalls formed at the center of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 A small inner eye was at the center of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 The inner eye was surrounded by a tight ring of thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the inner eye and eyewall and a larger, outer eyewall formed.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the concentric eyewalls.\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 The circulation around Hurricane Rafael was small.\u00a0 Wind to hurricane force extended out 20 miles (30 km) from the center of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 115 miles (185 km) in the eastern side of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 60 miles (95 km) in the western side of Rafael.<\/p>\n The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Hurricane Rafael was 19.2.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 6.8 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 26.0.\u00a0 Hurricane Rafael was similar in intensity to Hurricane Zeta when Zeta hit Louisiana in 2020.\u00a0 Rafael was not as big as Zeta was.<\/p>\n Hurricane Rafael will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next few 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 Hurricane Rafael will intensify during the next few hours.\u00a0 Rafael is likely to strengthen to a major hurricane.<\/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 reach western Cuba in a few hours.<\/p>\n 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 will 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.\u00a0 Hurricane Rafael will be capable of causing localized major damage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hurricane Rafael was approaching western Cuba on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 21.4\u00b0N and longitude 81.9\u00b0W which put the center about 130 miles (210 km) south-southeast of Havana, Cuba.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the northwest at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained […]<\/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":[865,866,3066,3662,2588,2548,145,51,50,867,3798,650,2630,873,3067,3069,3068,3073,3797,2598,2599],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21546"}],"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=21546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21547,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21546\/revisions\/21547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}