(Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Rafael will strike Cuba with Category 3 winds Wednesday before crossing into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will weaken and may even fall apart before reaching the US coastline.
Rafael’s winds strengthened to 115 miles (185 kilometers) per hour, making it a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Like several other storms this year, Rafael is relatively small, with hurricane-force winds only extending 15 miles from its center. The current season has produced 17 storms, three more than average.
The hurricane will come ashore about 5 p.m. local time southwest of Havana and then quickly cross the island before heading into the Gulf, said Al Reppert, a meteorologist with commercial forecaster AccuWeather Inc. It will meander around the Gulf for several days and could even dissipate.
“It should wind down over the Gulf of Mexico,” Reppert said. Its impact on the US “should be minimal.”
Rafael’s winds have increased by 50 mph in 24 hours, meaning it has reached the threshold for rapid intensification. That phenomenon has become more common as the planet warms, increasing the risk that people will be caught off guard by storms strengthening quickly before landfall. Rafael’s threat to offshore oil and gas production in the Gulf has sparked some evacuations.
(Updates strength in second paragraph. A previous version corrected the storm category.)
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