Hurricane Rafael after Crossing Cuba | NOAA GOES 16 Weather Satellite

Hurricane Rafael after Crossing Cuba | NOAA GOES 16 Weather Satellite

The latest major storm in 2024’s active hurricane season brought heavy rain and storm surge to Cuba as it moved into the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Rafael made landfall in the western Cuban province of Artemisa as a Category 3 storm on the afternoon of November 6, 2024. The hurricane approached the island from the south, having skirted past Jamaica the previous day as a tropical storm. Approaching Cuba, it traversed warm waters and encountered light to moderate vertical wind shear—environmental conditions that helped the storm to strengthen into a major hurricane.

Rafael’s sustained wind speeds peaked at 115 miles (185 kilometers) per hour prior to landfall, reported the National Hurricane Center (NHC). It weakened slightly upon encountering land, downgrading to a Category 2 storm as it moved across Cuba and tracked northwest into the Gulf of Mexico.

According to news reports, the Cuban government announced the hurricane had knocked out power across the entire island before landfall. Several airports suspended flights. Western Cuba was expected to receive 4 to 8 inches (100 to 200 millimeters) of rainfall from the storm system, according to the NHC, with several inches also forecast for the Cayman Islands and Florida Keys. The NHC also warned of strong storm surge that could raise water as much as 14 feet (about 4 meters) above normal levels along Cuba’s southern coast.

As of the morning of November 7, forecasters expected Rafael to move slowly to the west and remain a hurricane for several days, though it could weaken as it encounters a dry airmass in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The longer-term forecast remained uncertain.

Consistent with National Weather Service predictions, it has been an active year for hurricanes in the North Atlantic. Rafael is the 17th named storm and 11th hurricane of the 2024 season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. These numbers exceed the average seasonal totals of 14 named storms and seven hurricanes.

GOES-16 is the first of the GOES-R series of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). GOES-16 serves as the operational geostationary weather satellite in the GOES East position at 75.2°W, providing a view centered on the Americas. GOES-16 provides high spatial and temporal resolution imagery of the Earth through 16 spectral bands at visible and infrared wavelengths using its Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI). GOES-16 was launched from Cape Canaveral in November 2016 aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

Image Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
NASA Article Credit: Lindsey Doermann
Release Date: Nov. 7, 2024

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