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PTC Matthew

PaEasternWX

By PaEasternWX,
in Tropical Headquarters

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RU848789

RU848789

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Joe4alb said:

NORCROSS

 

Matthew – Slow Movement Increases Coastal Threat

Intense Hurricane Matthew is finally moving - slowly and painfully toward the north. It will increasingly impact Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic today with torrential life-threatening rain over those mountainous countries. Tomorrow the core of the hurricane is going to come close to Guantanamo Naval Base in eastern Cuba. Then the Bahamas are in line for a very hard hit beginning late tomorrow in the southern part of the country spreading north over the next two days.

The potential for catastrophic damage and loss of life in these countries is high.

Matthew defied the models last night and refused to get moving on schedule. This slow movement has two effects: 1) The steering flow that will control how close the hurricane gets to Florida and the Southeast coast has a chance to evolve, and 2) the waves and high water will pound the coastlines of the islands and the Southeast for days, meaning coastal damage is likely even without a direct hit.

The evolving steering flow has increased the threat of significant impacts to the U.S. coast. A high-pressure system over the Atlantic is forecast to get stronger as Matthew enters the Bahamas. The stronger it gets, the closer the hurricane is pushed toward Florida. We’ve seen that trend in the morning models – increasing the possibility of Matthew’s strong winds coming over or near the coast.

The National Hurricane Center cone just brushes the coast this morning from the Palm Beaches north to the Carolinas. The message here is that core of the hurricane is still most likely to stay offshore, but any track of a powerful hurricane over the left side of the cone will have significant impact on land.

Remember, on average the center of the hurricane stays inside the cone only 2/3 of the time. The rest of the time the cone is wrong. And even more importantly, the bad weather from any strong hurricane reaches outside the cone.

We will see how the forecasts evolve later today, but everybody on the east coast of Florida and up to the Carolinas needs to get their mind around the possibility of some level of impact from Matthew, and possibly significant impact.

On the current schedule, winds slowly pick up in Miami on Wednesday with the possibility of winds gusting over 40 mph, coastal flooding, and at least squalls of heavy rain peaking Thursday and improving Friday. The threat moves up the coast increasing in the Carolinas over the weekend.

The aggravation factor is very high with Matthew because it is moving so slowly. There have certainly been sluggish strong hurricanes before, but none in the modern era where we’re hanging on every computer model and spaghetti plot, which makes it worse.

We have to accept the fact that forecasts are slowly going to fall into place with a slow-moving hurricane. We cannot know exactly what’s going to happen at the coast, but given what we do know, it is crazy not to prepare for a stretch of bad weather with the power out, and be ready to take action if the track becomes more threatening.

The potential impact on the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast are completely unknown, beyond the expectation of very high surf and coastal erosion.

The only good thing about a slow-moving storm is that it is not going to pounce. There will be time to get ready. Think of the extra time as a gift, and don’t look a gift storm in the mouth.

This update was prepared Monday morning, October 3. Please check in with The Weather Channel, your local media, the National Hurricane Center, and your local National Weather Service office.

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wxmx

wxmx

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Akeem the African Dream said:

How close did the storm pass to this buoy?  Sustained winds are pretty low for a cat 4 if it went right over.  

Considering pressure was down to 945mb, probably went over it.

 

Recon just recorded SFMR winds of 124kts.

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