Rafael Was A Gulf Oddity For November

Typically when we see a tropical storm or hurricane in the Gulf, the entire Gulf Coast is holding their breath. However, Hurricane Rafael allowed people to breathe a sigh of relief as the storm drifted through the Gulf without any anticipated landfall.

H​owever, Rafael is still worth the eyeballs for a few reasons:

It was a rare Gulf fizzler.

P​erhaps strangest of all, Rafael entered the Gulf as a hurricane, but weakened to a remnant before ever reaching land.

O​f 284 Gulf hurricanes since 1851, we could find only eight others that entered the Gulf of Mexico, but failed to make a U.S. or Mexico landfall as at least a tropical depression.

T​he last to pull that stunt was Marco in August 2020, whose center barely stayed off the Louisiana coast before kicking the bucket.

T​wo other November hurricanes - Jeanne in 1980 and Ida in 2009 - also failed to landfall anywhere before losing their tropical characteristics.

I​t was an outlier for a Category 3 November hurricane.

Early Friday morning, Rafael regained its previous Category 3 intensity over the Gulf.

I​t did so farther west than any other November Category 3 or stronger Atlantic Basin hurricane previously did in 173 years, according to NOAA's database.

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Why Rafael’s track is so rare

O​f only six other previous Gulf hurricanes in November, five of those were in the eastern Gulf.

“We don't typically have western Gulf storms in November because the jet stream usually becomes stronger over the southern U.S. and most of the Gulf,” said Erdman. “That stronger jet usually either pushes any November storms toward Florida, the Caribbean Sea, or rips them apart.”

Since cold fronts and drier air that’s associated with them are more common in the South in November, the drier air can quickly ruin a storm’s chance of survival near the Gulf. That’s because cold fronts act as a wall of sorts, blocking any storms from passing through. The result: very few November storms make landfall along the Gulf Coast.

O​f the 287 hurricanes that made a mainland U.S. landfall in NOAA's database, only four of those did so in November. Most recently, Hurricane Nicole struck Florida in 2022 as a late-season Category 1 hurricane.

However, cold fronts typically don’t make it all the way through Florida in November, which leaves an opening of opportunity in the Sunshine State. That’s why if a storm does form or move into the Gulf of Mexico in November, Florida's the most likely landfall location.

Typical impact zones for November storms

In the satellite era - since 1966 - November has produced an average of one storm every 1 to 2 years and one hurricane every 2 to 3 years.

More often, it's parts of the Caribbean and Central America that have taken hard hits from November hurricanes.

If a storm does develop in November, it usually does so in the western Caribbean Sea or either the southwestern or central Atlantic. This is because environmental factors are better suited for development. Wind shear is normally pretty low, cold fronts usually haven’t made it this far south, and water temperatures are still pretty warm. All of these factors can help support storm formation.

But just as we’ve seen with Rafael, hurricane season doesn’t always play by the rule book - anything is possible.

J​ennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.