Former Hurricane Rafael weakened to a tropical storm over the central Gulf of Mexico on Friday night.\u00a0 At 4:00 a.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Rafael was located at latitude 25.0\u00b0N and longitude 90.8\u00b0W which put the center about 265 miles (425 km) north-northwest of Progreso, Mexico.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward the west-northwest at 6 m.p.h. (10 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h). The minimum surface pressure was 992 mb.<\/p>\n
Former Hurricane Rafael continued to weaken over the central Gulf of Mexico on Friday night. An upper level low over the central U.S. was producing southwesterly winds that were blowing toward the top of Rafael\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds were causing moderate vertical wind shear. Drier air was being pulled into the western side of Tropical Storm Rafael.\u00a0 The combination of moderate vertical wind shear and drier air caused Rafael to continue to weaken.<\/p>\n
The moderate vertical wind shear was also affecting the structure of Tropical Storm Rafael.\u00a0 New thunderstorms were still developing near the center of Rafael’s circulation.\u00a0 Thunderstorms were also still occurring in bands in the eastern side of Tropical Storm Rafael.\u00a0 Bands in the western side of Rafael’s circulation consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds. \u00a0 Storms near the center of Rafael generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away to the east of the tropical storm.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Tropical Storm Rafael was small. Wind to tropical storm force extended out 90 miles (145 km) from the center of Rafael’s circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Rafael will move through an environment mostly 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\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 The combination of moderate vertical wind shear and drier air is likely to cause Tropical Storm Rafael to weaken gradually during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Rafael could maintain its intensity today, if the wind shear does not get any stronger.<\/p>\n
The winds steering Tropical Storm Rafael will be weak during the next 24 hours. As a result, on its anticipated track, Rafael will meander over the central Gulf of Mexico during the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Hurricane Rafael weakened to a tropical storm over the central Gulf of Mexico on Friday night.\u00a0 At 4:00 a.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Rafael was located at latitude 25.0\u00b0N and longitude 90.8\u00b0W which put the center about 265 miles (425 km) north-northwest of Progreso, Mexico.\u00a0 Rafael was moving toward 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":[865,866,24,2258,3797,3796],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574"}],"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=21574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21575,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574\/revisions\/21575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}