Rafael becomes a hurricane on its path toward Cuba

AccuWeather

Tropical Storm Rafael officially strengthened into a hurricane on the evening of Nov. 5 as the storm bore down on Cuba.

Transcript

00:00Bri, we got a hurricane on our hands.

00:02Yes, we do.

00:03Hurricane Rafael, that current positioning here,

00:06moving right over the Cayman Islands.

00:09It didn't take much, right?

00:10We told you we were on the brink

00:12and we're at 75 miles per hour sustained,

00:14bringing us to a cat one.

00:16It's continuing to move up 15 miles per hour,

00:20north and west.

00:20We are still anticipating this storm

00:23to bring some pretty big impacts here to Cuba,

00:26including western Cuba,

00:28where we could see a storm surge

00:30as high as six to 10 feet

00:32in a few of these areas here along the coast

00:34where we are anticipating

00:36the worst part of the storm to move over.

00:39We could even see wave heights as high as 13 feet

00:43with your accurate local storm max.

00:45This goes through the middle of the week.

00:47Now, these impacts don't stop here,

00:49but when it gets into the Gulf,

00:51things get a little bit murkier here.

00:53But as we look at your overall impact,

00:57at least when it comes to that risk to lives and property,

01:00we have the high risk here centered

01:02where the storm's going to make landfall first,

01:04and then we could see where that storm goes

01:07once it makes its way into the Gulf.

01:08But right now, we're still calling for some impacts here

01:10for the U.S., Jamaica, U.S.

01:13at Accu with a real impact number at a one for both of you.

01:16That rain's gonna continue here to shift

01:19in that northwesterly direction,

01:21and it's gonna unleash some heavy rain.

01:23We've already seen some heavy rain across these zones.

01:26Your accurate local storm max is high as 14 inches,

01:28so upwards to a foot of rain

01:32in some of these waterlogged areas.

01:35Now, into Sunday, these winds will howl

01:37with your accurate local storm max number.

01:39Pretty impressive as the storm really gets going.

01:43I mean, right now,

01:44there's really nothing stopping the storm.

01:46It is in its lovely environment,

01:49and it's gonna continue to track on its journey.

01:53It has its eyes set here on West Cuba.

01:56It's gonna unleash some gusty, gusty winds

01:59there here into the weekend,

02:01and so we're monitoring this situation

02:05as we get closer towards the U.S. coast

02:08where we could see, again, some gustier winds as well,

02:11especially there across the central Gulf Coast states.

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Transcript

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