The latest computer models show a more westward track for Hurricane Matthew, either hugging the coast of Florida, or with the Navy NAVGEM model, actually moving over Florida.
The models also show a slower progression of the storm northward, very bad for the US SE coastline and Florida, but potentially sparing our area from the storm.
With a slower moving storm, an upper air trough and cold front may sweep this out to sea after the storm passes the outer banks of NC. Timing of both features will be everything.
Another tropical storm, Nicole, has formed east of Hurricane Matthew. This will increase the challenge and complexity of the computer modeling of Matthew.
A very serious situation exists for the Caribbean, as Hurricane Matthew has intensified into a Category 4 storm.
As mentioned over a week ago, this storm formation has been relatively well-predicted by the models for almost two weeks, which is very impressive. When it comes to hurricanes, details such as speed and direction of movement have enough variations; when incorporated in the global forecast models, it’s creates havoc with a dependable deterministic forecast.
The blocked pattern in the northern Atlantic appears to be re-establishing itself, which would cause Matthew to veer towards the US. east coast. The potential of a blocking setup was depicted by the GFS model for well over a week.
That said, except for intensification, the storm’s general path has been relatively close to the one predicted, except the timing has been slower by several days. The current GFS takes the storm into the SE coastline of the US later this week and it might affect us next Saturday. Stay tuned.
This morning’s NAM-based HRRR and the GFS-based LAMPS forecast show somewhat different predictions for today (Saturday).
Both have kept an ongoing chance of light precip during the day, but much less than yesterday. Precip chances have reduced from 70% to just under 50% for a six hour period.
The HRRR keeps the rain to our east / offshore and to our west for much of day until about 5 PM. The GFS LAMPS maintains an ongoing hourly chance of over 20%, which generally is on the moderate side.
I like the HRRR, so to be optimistic, I think a cloudy, damp but relatively shower-free forecast is a reasonable bet for much of today. I guess we’ll see.
