11/08/2024

A rare November hurricane made landfall in western Cuba as a Category 3 storm
Wednesday and continued to move slowly toward the northwest Thursday morning.
Volunteer ham radio operators were there to provide surface reports to the
National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Hurricane Rafael left Cuba's 10 million residents without power and on Thursday
afternoon was a Category 2 storm moving away from Cuba and heading northwest
towards the Gulf of Mexico. Initial predictions showed the storm could have
been headed for Florida and Louisiana, but all watches and warnings in those
areas have been discontinued.

The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN), the VoIP Hurricane Net, and WX4NHC, the amateur
radio station at the National Hurricane Center (NHC), were activated until
Wednesday night but are now secured and continuing to monitor the storm.

The NHC predicts that Rafael should remain a hurricane for the next couple of
days as it moves into a drier air mass in the south-central Gulf of Mexico this
weekend and early next week.

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