Matthew Strengthens Into A Hurricane
The forecast presented on this page is not an official forecast from the NHC. The information/forecast on this site is the opinion of the author and may not be the forecast thinking of the NHC. For official information and forecast consult the NHC or NWS.
Matthew becomes officially a hurricane as of 18Z. As of 5:00PM EDT, is located at 14.1 N -67.8 W with winds at 75 mph gusting to 90 mph. It is moving to the west at 17 mph. Matthew is currently experiencing moderate wind shear and will continue to do so for the next 24-48 hours. After this conditions become more conducive for further development. It will continue to move along the southern edge of the ridge to the north and then begin to move northwestward around the southwest portion of the ridge. This combined with an upper-level low over the eastern US will lead to a northward turn of Matthew this weekend. Past this point, the forecast becomes unclear.
Over the past couple of days I have been going over some scenarios of what could happen if certain conditions exist. At this hour, there has been no definitive evidence of what a future forecast would be. I have been relying on forecast models to get a feel as to the synoptic conditions during the forecast period (not the ideal method but use what we can get for the time being). What would happen with a stronger trough? Stronger ridge? Faster storm?
Today, aircraft has been sent to the surrounding area to acquire data to input into the forecast models for a more detailed solution. Once that is done, we will see how accurate the data is we have been looking at for the past few days.
Today’s models (doesn’t include data from aircraft) have moved a little but still high uncertainty exist. For this writing, I will use the GFS, Euro, CMC, NAVGEM, and ensemble members.
As for the GFS, a shift to the west has occurred as of the 12Z forecast with landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Euro, CMC, and NAVGEM have a similar forecast track (a few hundred miles off the east coast and moving east) but the CMC, model ensembles, and NAVGEM are much faster than the Euro. This has been the case for the past few days. The Euro has a weaker trough over the Gulf of Mexico therefore the storm doesn’t accelerate northward as the other models do.
The ridge in the mid Atlantic Ocean is forecast to stay to the east of the storm as it tracks along the ridge’s western edge. This will bring the storm nearly parallel to the eastern coast but a few hundred miles offshore. At this time there will be a strong ridge building to the north which will cause a potential problem with the forecast track at that time. The ridge could be strong and not be moving eastward quick enough and which could send the storm on a more northwesterly track potentially bringing it over land. The ridge could be weak or moving quickly. If so when the storm reaches that latitude the ridge could be making an exit and the storm continue on a northeasterly then easterly track.
There are many different scenarios that need to be considered since the uncertainty of the models is still quiet high.
One bit of advice I would give to those who are not familiar with forecast models is not to get hung up on one or two specific models. Like the image above, there are several different solutions that could happen. Instead, focus on how spread out the different tracks are and associate what your seeing as a high level of uncertainty in the models therefore any forecast within this area is not a guarantee. In a few days, we will begin to see what this storm will do and hopefully these lines become closer together so we are confident on a storms forecast track.
At the time this is being posted the 18Z GFS is currently running. If there is anything new to discuss, I will write an update but I doubt this will give more confidence to the forecast.
Update: After the 18Z GFS run, like other models, has picked up the speed on the approaching upper-level trough coming across the US. A weaker ridge to the east also explains a shift eastward in the track. This solution would keep the storm off the NC coast but still very close. The GFS track lies slightly east of other model tracks.
Of course this is all speculation on information we currently don’t have. I will wait until this evening’s runs give us with the additional data added to see what impact this will have.