Rafael on the brink of becoming a hurricane as it approaches Cuba

Rafael's biggest impact is expected to be on Cuba, but it will still bring at least some risk to the U.S. in the days ahead.

Transcript

00:00Raphael's on the brink of becoming a hurricane right on the brink right 70

00:05miles per hour sustained winds it's continuing its journey further north and

00:09west bringing those impacts here right across the Cayman Islands you can see

00:14some of those gusty winds and of course we're dumping a lot of rain but this

00:18storm has been on the move moving northwest at 15 miles per hour so it's

00:23not really meandering it's continuing to gather its steam and chug along further

00:29towards Cuba and that's where we are anticipating here further strengthening

00:33but you'll see that time difference there's not a lot of time in between

00:38when we are expecting landfall and when we are anticipating this storm to

00:42strengthen it to hurricane a status and that's going to be a category 1

00:47hurricane even by Wednesday morning we're monitoring that situation now it's

00:51a strong tropical storm but then even by Wednesday evening 5 p.m. landfall Cuba we

00:58could see a category 2 hurricane and we're continuing to monitor the storm

01:02because right now it has some good characteristics it does have plenty of

01:06moisture it's strong on that environment and it's pushing away a lot of that dry

01:10air that we've been hanging on to here across the Gulf of Mexico and even

01:15across the South North Atlantic watch this moisture just surge north so we'll

01:19have that tropical pool there but in the meantime it's going to be pushing a lot

01:25of that rain right on the shore especially when it comes to those gusty

01:30or winds storm surge between 6 to 10 feet across parts of West Cuba your

01:35accurate local storm max you could see upwards to 13 feet and this goes through

01:39Wednesday and that's why we do have that high risk here to lives and property

01:44right where we are anticipating landfall and that's why we have your AccuWeather

01:48real impact scale number for a 2 for Cuba but you'll know a 1 for the U.S.

01:54and also Jamaica as right now there's still a little bit to question with this

02:00storm as it makes its way into the Gulf but we are calling for at least some

02:04risk here along the Gulf Coast so you just have to be aware right now not a

02:08whole lot of rain about 1 to 2 inches arriving by the weekend but of course

02:13we're going to continue to fine-tune this forecast getting even closer to the

02:17event