Hurricane Rafael still makes an appearance in the official hurricane season, but is in rare company.

As of 1:00 PM Eastern, Hurricane Rafael had maximum sustained winds of 115 miles per hour, making it a Category 3 hurricane strength.

Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist and hurricane researcher, gives us some great statistics about X.

Hurricane Rafael is now the fifth major hurricane of this season, according to Klotzbach. He says that only seven other years since 1966 have there been five or more major hurricanes.

He also notes that this is the fourth major hurricane since late September. This ties the record set in 2020. He further says that the maximum number of major hurricanes in this late period was two.

The National Hurricane Center’s official track forecast has Rafael moving slowly west toward the center of the Gulf of Mexico. Note that the forecast calls for Rafael to become a hurricane through Saturday and then weaken to a tropical storm.

Can Rafael remain a strong hurricane as it approaches part of the US coastline? Probably not. We know that hurricanes need at least 80 degree water to exist. Current ocean surface temperatures show that areas in the Gulf of Mexico have cooled to less than 80 degrees. Given the time of year and the sun’s slowly decreasing heating power, ocean temperatures will not rise immediately.

The trend over the past week has been for a few small parts of the Gulf of Mexico to warm by a degree or two, but the majority has cooled slightly.

Hurricane Rafael comes from an area with a water temperature of 80 to 85 degrees and is moving into a water area of ​​75 to 80 degrees.

Hurricane Rafael should not be a hurricane if it hits the US coast anywhere. For now, it’s just a reminder that we’ve had a very active and devastating hurricane season here in the US