The power of Hurricane RafaelThe crisis, which is expected to develop as a result of Tropical Depression 18 in the Caribbean, has grown steadily over the weekend. Since Friday’s forecasts, several models and trackers for Monday, November 4, assume that Rafael will change from a tropical depression to a hurricane on Wednesday morning as it passes over Cuba. The storm will then slowly make its way into the Gulf of Mexico. Here is the current path of Hurricane Rafael and where it is expected to hit the United States.

What is the expected track of Hurricane Rafael in the Gulf?

Hurricane Rafael’s path is expected to hit Jamaica, western Cuba and then somewhere in the US between Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the western panhandle region of Florida.

This is based on spaghetti models from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) on Monday at 4 a.m. PDT / 7 a.m. EDT. Most projections have the center of Tropical Depression 18, which will likely become Hurricane Rafael, moving toward Louisiana.

More specifically, the path will head towards New Orleans on Saturday, but since it still has about five days left before it makes direct landfall in the United States, there is still plenty of time for the system to get moving and change direction. Rafael may slow down, speed up, or tilt west or east as the week progresses.

More importantly, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicts that Hurricane Rafael will weaken to a tropical storm after Friday. This is partly due to the colder ocean temperatures around the United States Gulf Coast in November. That said, the strength of the storm will depend on how long it will remain in the warmer Caribbean waters and how much the wind shear will potentially weaken it as it moves through the Gulf.

The NHC also monitors a large low-pressure area in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean, stretching from the northern part of Cuba to Anguilla and St. Martin. It predicts that a system has a small chance (20% chance) of developing into a tropical depression over the next seven days.

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