Editor’s note: Rafael is now a tropical storm. Follow along here for updates about the storm on Saturday, Nov. 9.
Hurricane Rafael, the storm that pummeled Cuba this week with 115-mph winds and intense rainfall, now isn’t forecast to make landfall in the U.S., but the storm will make its presence felt along U.S. beaches through Monday with high surf and dangerous rip currents.
Rafael regained major hurricane status on Friday, reaching maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour, generating swells and high seas across the Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said.
The hurricane will bring a high risk of life-threatening rip currents and high surf with big breaking waves along Gulf Coast beaches from Corpus Christi to southward along the Florida peninsula through the Veterans Day weekend, National Weather Service offices warned on Friday.
“Swells generated by Rafael are expected to spread across most of the Gulf of Mexico during the next few days. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the National Hurricane Center said in a Friday forecast.
In Corpus Christi, wave heights were expected to grow to heights of up to 8 feet on Friday, then climb as high as 10 feet over the weekend, the weather service said. Along beaches in Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle, breakers as high as seven feet are expected.
In its latest advisory early Friday morning, the hurricane center said Rafael, headed west at Category 3 strength, should begin weakening and continue to taper off, becoming a tropical storm on Saturday.
Rafael drenched western Cuba and took out the entire island’s electrical grid when it slammed into the island nation as a Category 3 storm. The blackout it triggered served to intensify a crisis that has left many residents without power for more than two weeks amid a series of electrical grid failures.
Tens of thousands evacuated ahead of the storm’s arrival and some 10 million Cubans remained without power Thursday as authorities struggled to restore electricity. The country’s state-run media said it had returned power to some areas but that the capital city of Havana largely remained in the dark.
Additional rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches were expected Friday, according to the hurricane center, leading to storm total accumulations of 12 inches across portions of western Cuba. This could cause flash flooding and mudslides, especially along the higher terrain.
Hurricane Rafael:Storm heads into Gulf after slamming Cuba, collapsing power grid
The United States, particularly Florida, should catch a break as the latest forecast from AccuWeather shows Rafael sparing the central Gulf region.
Rafael’s more westward track will take it away from the U.S., according to AccuWeather meteorologists. This would make Rafael the first hurricane to reach the Gulf of Mexico in 2024 that will not make landfall in the U.S.
“Impacts to the U.S. from Rafael will be indirect and mostly in the form of rough seas over the Gulf and rough surf along the Gulf Coast beaches into this weekend,” according to AccuWeather. “Depending on the extent of moisture of the feature when over the southwestern gulf, there may also be a little rain in South Texas next week.”
As at least one model had predicted this week, the center’s current forecast calls for the hurricane to make a small loop in the Gulf as it meanders through Monday.
At least a dozen storms since 1963 have made loops of various sizes as they were pushed around by larger weather systems. Rafael was being steered by a ridge that extends from the Atlantic into the Gulf and a trough over the mainland U.S., thwarting what had once been predicted to be a landfall on the northern Gulf Coast.
In 1985, Hurricane Elena traveled the length of Cuba, then appeared headed for Florida before steering currents pushed it into a short loop and it wound up making landfall between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.
This forecast track shows the most likely path of the center of the storm. It does not illustrate the full width of the storm or its impacts, and the center of the storm is likely to travel outside the cone up to 33% of the time.
Illustrations include an array of forecast tools and models, and not all are created equal. The hurricane center uses only the top four or five highest performing models to help make its forecasts.
(This story has been updated to add new information and a new video.)
Contributing: Christopher Cann, USA TODAY
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com