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.
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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