Tropical Storm Rafael to become hurricane, threaten US by weekend

Tropical Storm Rafael is forecast to strengthen into the next hurricane of the season and track into the Gulf of Mexico and make landfall in the United States this coming weekend.

AccuWeather has been monitoring the threat since the middle of October, well before the National Hurricane Center issued potential development alerts. Hurricane experts designated a tropical rainstorm Saturday to raise public awareness of the situation's seriousness.

"Steering breezes will guide the tropical storm on a northwesterly track that takes it near Jamaica and the Cayman Islands early this week and then western Cuba at midweek," AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said, "In this zone, waters are sufficiently warm, and disruptive breezes and wind shear will be low."

As the storm moves northward through the middle of the week and gains wind intensity, heavy, flooding rain and damaging winds are expected across Jamaica and Cuba. "This storm is expected to make landfall Wednesday morning as a Category 1 or possibly a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale in western Cuba," AccuWeather Meteorologist Geordan Lewis said.

The AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes is a 1 for Jamaica and a 2 for Cuba. The RealImpact Scale considers the magnitude of rainfall, storm surge, mudslides, flooding, and wind, as well as the economic impacts on populated areas. The Saffir-Simpson scale only takes into account the storm's wind intensity. The RealImpact for the U.S. is a 1.

The tropical threat will spend some time as a Category 1 or 2 hurricane before losing some wind intensity while approaching the U.S. central Gulf coast this weekend due to progressively cooler waters and increasing wind shear.

The storm will be large enough and strong enough to create rough seas over the Gulf of Mexico, building surf and triggering beach erosion along shores. Some coastal flooding is likely to the north and east of the storm track, where winds will push Gulf waters shoreward.

The highest probability of landfall is along the central Louisiana coast. However, since steering breezes may change a bit late this week and this weekend due to the approach of a non-tropical storm from the south-central U.S., there is a wide window as to where landfall will occur. That landfall potential zone extends from the Florida Panhandle to the Texas coast. (Source: AccuWeather)