MIAMI – Powerful Hurricane Rafael slammed into Cuba as a major hurricane on Wednesday, and the late-season tropical system has now emerged in the Gulf of Mexico, but the question turns to where it is going next.HURRICANE RAFAEL TRACKER: FORECAST CONE, SPAGHETTI PLOTS, MAPS, ALERTS AND MOREThe FOX Forecast Center said that what’s happening now is a rare occurrence. Rafael remains a Category 2 hurricane as of the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). It’s the first Category 2 storm to enter the Gulf of Mexico in November since Hurricane Ida in 2009.Cuba and parts of the western Caribbean no doubt took the brunt of the storm, which brought damaging, hurricane-force winds, flooding rain and a life-threatening storm surge.A weather station in the Casablanca area of Havana reported a wind gust of 93 mph around the time of Rafael’s landfall on Wednesday afternoon. According to a report from Reuters, Cuba was plunged into darkness due to the impacts of the storm.HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHERAll tropical alerts have been dropped, and conditions are expected to gradually improve across the region, but millions of people along the U.S. Gulf Coast will be closely monitoring the hurricane’s progress as it slowly churns over the Gulf of Mexico.On Thursday afternoon, the NHC said Rafael had made a slight “resurgence.””The hurricane has apparently mixed out some of the dry air from earlier today and became better organized,” the NHC said.DOWNLOAD THE FREE FOX WEATHER APPAs of the latest advisory from the NHC, Rafael is more than 250 miles west-northwest of Havana, Cuba, and moving west-northwest at 9 mph. Rafael has maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.The NHC said the improved organization of the hurricane could make additional strengthening possible on Thursday night, but overall models favor a weakening pattern through the next five days as Rafael moves into a drier environment and encounters stronger wind shear over the weekend. The FOX Forecast Center said that computer forecast models strongly agree that Rafael will quickly turn to the west and begin its journey toward the central Gulf of Mexico. The steering currents assisting Rafael on its path from the Caribbean to the Gulf will begin to drastically weaken, allowing the hurricane to meander in the central Gulf through the weekend and into next week.The FOX Forecast Center added that there is an increasing consensus that Rafael will slowly move toward Texas or Mexico and steadily weaken as it does so. However, there is a chance that Rafael could make a turn to the north, but the FOX Forecast Center says that’s looking less likely.That’s because Rafael will be moving into a very dry atmosphere and strong upper-level headwinds. Due to the hostile atmospheric conditions, Rafael could simply dissipate.If Rafael survives into next week, the FOX Forecast Center said it could be because it has moved just far enough south in the western Gulf of Mexico to avoid those hostile conditions. In that case, the Mexican coast could be threatened.