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