Tropical Depression 18, destined to become Tropical Storm Rafael Monday, 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 budding 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, Cuba and the Cayman Islands. 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. Later this week, a rating on the RealImpact Scale will be issued for the U.S.
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 upper Texas coast.
Dangerous and damaging effects will extend outward from the storm center, especially on its eastern side. People should not just focus on the eye path but rather on AccuWeather’s forecast impact zones, which its team of dozens of meteorologists will heavily scrutinize throughout the storm’s life cycle.
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Together with the non-tropical storm, the storm will spread a zone of drenching rain and locally severe thunderstorms over parts of the interior South-Central and Southeastern states as it moves inland.
Enough rain could fall on the southern Appalachians to cause flooding and other issues. However, it may not take as much rain to trigger issues in the region, especially where drainage infrastructure and roads have not been fully repaired since Hurricane Helene.
Some rainfall may prime the dry landscape and create flooding more easily than if the new tropical storm were to move over the region by itself. In the case of the recent flash flood disaster in the southern Appalachians, intense rain fell a day or two before Helene’s arrival.
Any tropical storm or hurricane that transitions to a tropical rainstorm has the potential for excessive rainfall and flooding. While the magnitude of flooding that occurred over the southern Appalachians from Helene is unlikely to occur in the same exact area, any location where rain concentrates and falls at a heavy rate for multiple hours could be at risk for significant flooding.
Aside from the risk of flash flooding, which may be focused on a small area, the storm may bring much-needed rain and wildfire relief over a broad zone later this weekend to next week. In some cases, the storm duo may bring the first soaking rain in months to parts of the Central and Eastern states.
Tropical Storm Patty developed over the central Atlantic this past weekend and has already transitioned to a tropical rainstorm as it approaches Portugal and Spain. It will deliver gusty winds and heavy rain into the middle of the week as it impacts southwestern Europe.
AccuWeather meteorologists are watching another area that could churn out a tropical depression or storm as it approaches the Leeward Islands and moves along the northern islands of the Caribbean this week.
Sara is the next name on the list of tropical storms for the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane season after Rafael.
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Publish date : 2024-11-04 04:15:00
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