West fire risk, East flood threat

Rafael is on the move, and it is the weather feature that will be most active for the rest of the week as it enters the Gulf of Mexico. For the latest Breakfast Brief please tap on the link here.

The same system that brought rounds of severe weather and torrential rains for the central region of the U.S. on Tuesday continues to slowly move east. Ahead of it, the winds will be mainly from the south, bringing in warm temperatures on Wednesday afternoon. Highs will reach the upper 70s to low 80s across much of New England, the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic. Highs from Portland, Maine, through New Bern, North Carolina, could tie or break hot records.

This front will not quite make it all the way east, at least for the Southeast portion of the U.S. this week, as it will retract as deep tropical moisture arrives from the Southeast and the high pressure, although tweaking will continue to be in place.

This same high-pressure system keeps the warmth and allows moisture to move over the Southeast, protecting Florida from Rafael's landfall. The official track from the National Hurricane Center shows Rafael making landfall early Sunday morning somewhere along the central Gulf Coast. Its moisture will affect Florida as wind shear will displace much, if not all, of its storms and showers to the east and over Florida.

Astronomical fall goes through December 21. but meteorological winter is around the corner. This is what it means.