Major Track Changes for Matthew

Hurricane forecasting for my money is the most difficult branch of meteorology.  It's a lot like golf.  In order to have a good score you need to hit the tee shot long and straight in order to avoid the woods or any bunkers.  Then you have to have a really good approach shot in order to have a shot at the green.  In hurricane forecasting putting is easy; its getting to the green that is hard.  Most forecasters crushed the tee shot all the way into the Bahama's.  My approach shot landed in the bunker.  I thought it would impact the SE US before curving south of New England bringing beneficial rain.  It still may but trend is for Matthew to impact the SE US only before stalling in the SW Atlantic.

General Overview
The damage and causality reports are still coming in from Haiti and Cuba.  The Bahama's are next in the path of Matthew and then Florida.  Here is the new official track.

Hurricane Matthew 5 AM Track, Warnings

This track takes the storm dangerously close to the Florida coast.  High pressure will in New England now appears to suppress the storm south,  It will not link up the cold front, it will not enhance moisture, hell it won't even give us any rain!  Now I will still track the storm but if nothing changes in the model guidance I will return to regular blogs tomorrow.

Land interaction has weakened Matthew as the storm is now a Category 3 hurricane.  On satellite he has lost some the big time thunderstorms.  This is temporary.  As the storm pulls away from Cuba it will either expand its wind field, re-intensify or both.

NOAA/NCEP/NWS Rainbow IR Satellite

The spaghetti models that were over New England yesterday are now hundreds of miles south.

Hurricane model tracks initialized Wednesday 2 AM (image Weatherbell)

No real changes in the GA/SC coast but the storm is much bigger problem for Florida than I thought. The bottom line is do not change any plans for Sunday-Monday.  You'll know if the forecast changes again but as we get closer to the event our computer guidance generally locks onto a solution.  In the short term enjoy some beautiful fall weather through Friday.  Canadian high pressure will keep skies mostly sunny with temps in the low 60's,

WPC Surface Forecast Wednesday 8 AM

 NWS temps

NWS 2 m max temps Wednesday (image Weatherbell)

Temps look to rebound closer to 70 on Thursday and Friday.

-Zack Green