I’ve been watching this awhile, as have many others, and now it looks like we might have some real trouble. Matthew looks to be strengthening – see the satellite loop below.
Besides winds, huge amounts of rain and storm surge will accompany this storm.
Hurricane expert Dr. Ryan Maue says of the animation above:
Pressure at 934 mb in Hurricane Matthew. Improved satellite representation, expansion of cold cloud-tops suggests slightly stronger
He also opines on this series of forecast maps that show Matthew grazing the east coast of Florida:
Margin of error is small as Hurricane Matthew likely will parallel Florida east coast — hopefully well offshore. GFS 18z is too close.
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On the other side of the world, CHABA, a category 5 is heading to Japan and South Korea:
“Chaba has just been upgraded to the equivalent of a Category 5 Atlantic hurricane. It is packing winds of 270 kilometres per hour with gusts nearer 325km/h.
Further strengthening is likely within the next 12 hours. Sustained winds of 280km/h and gusts approaching 335km/h are possible.
The centre of Typhoon Chaba is currently forecast to move into the Korea Strait around 18:00 GMT on Tuesday. Damaging winds and flooding rains are expected to affect western Kyushu throughout much of the day ahead.
There has been flooding across South Korea and southern Japan recently. This has been caused by the passage of three typhoons in the past two weeks.”
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/super-typhoon-chaba-heads-japan-161003122946868.html
No matter what it looks like my golf vacation in Pinehurst area will be wet. We’ll be playing a ;lot of cards in the hotel lobby.
There is another projection from : http://www.weatherbell.com/
They send the hurricane out to the sea away from the East coast.
“…… hurricane Matthew grazing Florida East Coast”
Many years ago as a young man I was touring USA on the Greyhound buses. It was late September, got off in Jacksonville, Florida in mid afternoon, put my stuff in the locker and went to explore the town. Strong winds, bits flying of the roofs, traffic lights swaying lake crazy, no rain, all shops closed, no one around the place, I was only one on the street.
I concluded this must be the most weird place in whole of America and after about half an hour I had enough, got back to the grubby Greyhound waiting room, with some highly non pc signs on the toilet (wash-room) doors. After few hours of sitting next to a coin-slot tv, the bus turned up very late, someone mention that a hurricane is expected.
Went back to check the dates, actually it was somewhere around October 6 or 7, 1974.
I have designed an Emergency Flash-Ligh™ for just such storms. I’m having difficulty getting funded.
http://spacetimepro.blogspot.com/2016/07/emergency-flashlight.html
Emergency Flash-Light™
Here is my spaghetti chart of the historical Hurricane tracks that passed between Haiti and Cuba within 2 weeks of Oct 3.
1964-Hazel is closest to the current course NNE, and it follows closely the NHC’s current predicted track. It made landfall on the border between North Carolina and South Carolina at 110 mph on Oct. 15.
1963-Flora was further south-east and moving NW. It stalled over Cuba, then moved NE.
1959 Gracie that doesn’t apply. It was just a tropical storm that grew north of Haiti.
The text should read “1954 Hazel.”
This is a version of the above where I have filtered out all storms that were below 70 mph in the straits between Haiti and Cuba.
1954-Hazel stands out as very similar to the current projection.
News about Matthew’s resemblance with Hazel
10/4: From Jacksonville’s perspective. Good history.
http://www.news4jax.com/weather/hurricanes-matthews-twin-hazel-shows-what-jacksonville-can-expect
10/4: Pretty superficial.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/10/04/matthews-path-similar-hazels-1954/91489682/
10/1: An early parallel note.
http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/33295673/hazel-versus-matthew
But:
I bet they want a do-over on that one.
Right now it seems that Matthew is tracking a little further east than the models projected. Eye is going to hit a little wider land mass with higher mountains in western Haiti. Unfortunately for the next couple of day I will be running from points in Ohio, to the Buffalo, NY area and then down to Hebron, KY just south of Cincinnati picking up and delivering parts for new Toyota automobiles and will only be able to monitor via my smart phone or tablet when WiFi is available. Sure wish I could be here at home monitoring and discussing this storm instead.
It looks like Matthew is drifting a little bit to the east at the present time.
The eye is making landfall in Haiti now (9 AM EDT). Last USAF pass through eye off shore had 120 kt maximum winds at flight level and 90 kt observed by the SFMR (apporx. surface wind). The center is moving more NE than forecast, so it will run over Haiti’s southern mountains. This should knock it down a bit, but there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip.
The Air Force SFMR measured 110 kt on its outbound leg, so max surface winds are higher than 90 kt.