{"id":34433,"date":"2024-11-07T01:53:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T07:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34433"},"modified":"2024-11-07T04:32:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T10:32:13","slug":"hurricane-rafael-strengthens-to-category-3-before-landfall-in-cuba-latest-track-and-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34433","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Rafael strengthens to Category 3 before landfall in Cuba: Latest track and forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Hurricane Rafael strengthened to a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/accurate-hurricane-forecasting-meteorologists-explain\/story?id=114989006\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">major Category 3 hurricane<\/a>&nbsp;as it neared the coast of Cuba on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Rafael is expected to bring life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds and flash flooding to the western part of the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A tropical storm warning is in effect for the Florida Keys, where heavy rain, gusty winds and even tornadoes are possible on Wednesday and into Thursday morning.<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/accurate-hurricane-forecasting-meteorologists-explain\/story?id=114989006\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Rafael will move into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and start weakening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Rafael isn&#8217;t posing a major threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast, but some of the tropical moisture could move toward the coast and add to the rain from an approaching cold front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Most models predict Rafael sitting in the Gulf into next week and possibly moving southwest toward Mexico.<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/after-photos-show-hurricane-beryls-destruction-gulf-coast\/story?id=115391813\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Atlantic hurricane season lasts through Nov. 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/developing-storm-rafael-hit-gulf-coast-week-latest\/story?id=115462321\">abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hurricane Rafael strengthened to a&nbsp;major Category 3 hurricane&nbsp;as it neared the coast of Cuba on Wednesday afternoon. Rafael is expected to bring life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds and flash flooding to the western part of the island. A tropical storm warning is in effect for the Florida Keys, where heavy rain, gusty winds and even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[31119,4492],"class_list":["post-34433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-hurricane-rafael","tag-landfall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34436,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34433\/revisions\/34436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}