Tropical Storm Rafael to threaten US by weekend

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Jon Porter was live on the AccuWeather Network on Nov. 5 to discuss Tropical Storm Rafael, which is expected to threaten the United States in the coming days.

Transcript

00:00I want to take you again there it is look at that wind and rain yep that's

00:04tropical storm Raphael all right joining me right now is AccuWeather chief

00:08meteorologist Jonathan Porter. John you know it was over 10 days ago we put out

00:13the high risk for development in the Caribbean we were confident we'd get at

00:18least a named storm and certainly that did develop right on cue let's talk

00:23about the impacts as we go forward this week. Right Bernie and we consistently

00:28first we warned of that risk well ahead of any other source and we consistently

00:33talked about the risk for development much higher than the National Hurricane

00:37Center and other sources in fact we were saying it was a near 100% risk of

00:42development and that's exactly what's occurred this is poised to intensify no

00:46hurricane looks like it's going to intensify very quickly here through the

00:49day today and impacts first in the Caribbean and then also to the Florida

00:54Keys and South Florida in terms of some storm surge concerns and also gusty winds.

01:00Now it enters the Gulf as we get in the Wednesday night and then well we'll talk

01:05about that path as it gets into the Gulf of Mexico here shortly here but

01:09certainly you look at the satellite picture John this is getting better

01:12organized the National Hurricane Center will be sending a plane into this

01:16shortly. Yes and we all signs here of a more organized a intensifying storm

01:23system notice the curvature of some of these bands of clouds especially on the

01:27eastern side of the storm that's again a sign that the storm is starting to

01:31become more organized burning and if it develops an inner core during the day

01:35today pretty quickly that it can really intensify and we can't rule out this

01:39becoming a major hurricane on the approach to Cuba. And the reason for that

01:43is when you look at the water vapor loop John there's a pocket of moisture and

01:49low wind shear and it's going right into that area. That's what we've been

01:53warning for days look at all the greens and blues here on the water vapor loop

01:58this is very moist air and a lot of times these storms will bring sort of a

02:03envelope of moisture along with them and ahead of it and that enables the storm

02:08again to not have any problems with dry air trying to get in there and slow the

02:12intensification rate we just don't see that today looks like it's going to be a

02:16path here to continue to intensify. All right and low wind shear as well will

02:20help it develop it'll move into the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday night and then this

02:25is where it gets complicated you and I always talk about forks in the road

02:29let's talk about the first fork in the road that's going to be on Thursday. Yeah

02:34I think I've learned that term from you Bernie when I first started here at

02:36AccuWeather 20 years ago you've always made that important point that these

02:40storms oftentimes there is a place that they approach and they're either going

02:44to go go one way or go the other and that's what we're going to be dealing

02:48with here is the classic fork in the road on Thursday once the storm becomes

02:52goes into the Gulf of Mexico north of Cuba it's either going to the west which

02:57would greatly reduce the risk for US impacts or it's going to be drawn to the

03:02north which means that again that corridor from Louisiana to Florida we'd

03:06be most concerned about potential landfall and then rain impacts as well

03:09along the coast and potentially in the interior as well. All right and and with

03:14that Louisiana or Florida then we have another fork in the road let's say it

03:19continues to go to the west northwest is it Louisiana or is it Florida it's a big

03:24difference. And climatology would tell you storms at this time of year would

03:28tend to want to go to Florida but there's two factors and we were delving

03:32into this with our team of hurricane experts we had a great debate on the

03:35floor here operations floor at the Global Weather Center AccuWeather this

03:38morning about this there's two factors that are going to control that movement

03:42the first is this area of high pressure off the Atlantic seaboard how intense is

03:47it and is it is it nosed further back in toward Florida or not and then the

03:52second factor is going to be this dip in the jet stream what's its orientation

03:57and where's the band of faster southwest winds here because the storm can either

04:02as we mentioned get drawn up closer to the Florida panhandle or may end up

04:06being drawn up closer toward Louisiana it's going to depend on the steering

04:10winds and small differences in these two weather systems can have a big

04:15impact on the track of the storm. And of course with the exclusive AccuWeather

04:19iPath we're just not giving you the the actual forecast but the possibilities

04:24and this is one of the larger windows I can remember seeing John. It is and we're

04:29purposely doing that this is not a computer algorithm which you see from

04:33other weather sources this is the opinion of AccuWeather expert

04:38meteorologists and where we purposely draw the right side of this AccuWeather

04:42window of movement and the left side of it and we've delineated that the center

04:46of the storm could be anywhere from the Florida Peninsula to the upper Texas

04:51coast here as we head toward late in the weekend every forecast has uncertainty

04:55associated with it this one has a larger amount of uncertainty than typical that's

05:00why we've got a wide window and we want everybody along the Gulf Coast to be

05:04paying close attention to this storm hour by hour with us here at AccuWeather

05:07over the coming days. And no matter the scenario it is important to note

05:11that this will be losing wind intensity and will not be a hurricane as it

05:17approaches the United States that's an important point rain would be the big

05:20story not necessarily the wind except in the southern Keys where this will be a

05:25hurricane there could be a significant storm surge. AccuWeather chief

05:28meteorologist Jonathan Porter. John thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.

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