Hurricane Rafael weakened over the central Gulf of Mexico on Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 24.6\u00b0N and longitude 89.7\u00b0W which put the center about 230 miles (365 km) north of Progreso, Mexico.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the west at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 120 m.p.h. (195 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 967 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Rafael started to weaken over the central Gulf of Mexico on Friday afternoon.\u00a0 An upper level low over the central U.S. was producing southwesterly winds that were blowing toward the top of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds were causing moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Drier air was being pulled into the western side of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 The combination of moderate vertical wind shear and drier air caused Hurricane Rafael to start to weaken.<\/p>\n
The moderate vertical wind shear was also affecting the structure of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 An eye was no longer visible at the center of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 The western part of the former eyewall weakened and that part of the eyewall consisted of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 Thunderstorms were still occurring in the eastern part of the former eyewall.\u00a0 Thunderstorms were also still occurring in bands in the eastern side of Hurricane Rafael.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Rafael generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away to the east of the hurricane.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Hurricane Rafael was small.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out 30 miles (50 km) from the center of Rafael\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 90 miles (145 km) from the center of Hurricane Rafael.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Hurricane Rafael was 16.5. The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 10.5 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 27.0.\u00a0 Hurricane Rafael was similar in intensity to Hurricane Idalia when Idalia hit Florida in 2023.\u00a0 Rafael was bigger than Idalia was.<\/p>\n
Rafael will move into an environment unfavorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Rafael will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 However the upper level low over the central U.S. will continue to cause moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 More drier air will also get pulled into the western side of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 The combination of moderate vertical wind shear and drier air will cause Hurricane Rafael to weaken during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
The winds steering Hurricane Rafael will weaken during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 As a result, on its anticipated track, Hurricane Rafael will meander over the central Gulf of Mexico during the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Rafael weakened over the central Gulf of Mexico on Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Hurricane Rafael was located at latitude 24.6\u00b0N and longitude 89.7\u00b0W which put the center about 230 miles (365 km) north of Progreso, Mexico.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the west 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":[865,866,3798,650,24,2258,3797],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21570"}],"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=21570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21571,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21570\/revisions\/21571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}