Hurricane Rafael moved over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 24.7\u00b0N and longitude 86.2\u00b0W which put the center about 325 miles (520 km) northeast of Progreso, Mexico.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the west-northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 105 m.p.h. (165 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 125 m.p.h. (200 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 968 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Rafael weakened a little on Wednesday night as it moved across western Cuba.\u00a0 Rafael strengthened again on Thursday when it moved over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the center of Rafael’s circulation and an eye formed again at the center of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 Storms near the core of Rafael generated upper level divergence that pumped more mass away from the hurricane. The removal of more mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Hurricane Rafael was small.\u00a0 Wind to hurricane force extended out 30 miles (50 km) from the center of Rafael\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 105 miles (165 km) from the center of Hurricane Rafael.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Hurricane Rafael was 17.8.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 10.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 27.8.\u00a0 Hurricane Rafael was similar in size and intensity to Hurricane Zeta when Zeta hit Louisiana in 2020.<\/p>\n
Rafael will move into 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 eastern periphery of a large upper level trough that extends from the North Central U.S. to the Southwest U.S.\u00a0 The upper level trough will produce southwesterly winds that will blow toward the top of Rafael\u2019s circulation. Those winds will cause some vertical wind shear, but the wind shear may not be enough to prevent intensification.\u00a0 Hurricane Rafael could intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 The wind shear is likely to increase during the weekend and Rafael is likely to weaken when the shear increases.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Rafael will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system that extends from the western Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Rafael toward the west during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Hurricane Rafael will move toward the central Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Rafael moved over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 24.7\u00b0N and longitude 86.2\u00b0W which put the center about 325 miles (520 km) northeast of Progreso, Mexico.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the west-northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The […]<\/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":[865,866,38,3798,650,24,2258,3797],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562"}],"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=21562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21563,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562\/revisions\/21563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}