Western Jersey Weather

The 11 am update on major hurricane Matthew has it back at a category 4 major hurricane. This is not surprising since it’s been over the very warm waters in the Bahamas. Satellite imagery showed the storm becoming better organized after moving through the land masses of Haiti and Cuba.

Tropical storm watch and warnings are now along the west coast of Florida. Yes the winds will be tropical storm strength even on the other side of Florida! Tropical storm winds start at 39 mph and hurricane starts at 74.

The crazy thing about this storm is the future track. It could loop around and impact Florida a second time! If it does so it will be much weaker then but still it will not be good.

Matthew has weakened slightly and is now a category 3. This was expecting since it was interacting with land masses.

Hurricane warnings are now up for parts of the Florida coast. Hurricane watches have been extended further north.

The latest forecast track has Matthew tracking close to the eastern Florida coast.

There has been a trend for the last 12 hours that is now taking the hurricane out to sea once it gets up to North Carolina. This is good news for the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast US. This is something that still needs to be watched carefully and tracked. We will still see some rain later Saturday into Sunday morning. This will be from the approaching cold front and at this time does not appear to link up with Matthew.

As of 2 pm today, major Hurricane Matthew is through Haiti now with eastern Cuba in it’s sights. The storm is still a category 4 with 145 sustained winds with higher gusts. Still moving north but expected to start a more NW turn later on.

You can see from the map above, the NHC keeps Matthew east of us. That is good news. I suspect Matthew will start interacting with the approaching cold front. If that happens, we should receive health amounts of rain and wind later on Saturday into Sunday morning.

There are currently Hurricane watches up for the east coast of Florida. The Governors of FL and North Carolina have already declared state of emergencies. I also just read that mandatory evacuations have been ordered for along the immediate coast of South Carolina.

Look for Hurricane Watches to be extended further north as time goes on and even Watches into Warnings.

After Cuba, the Bahamas will be impacted Wednesday. Then Florida on Thursday, especially afternoon on.

Matthew is the strongest storm on earth for the moment. The people of Haiti are still recuperating from their devastating earthquake not too long ago. Prayers to anyone in it’s path.

Above is the latest forecast on major Hurricane Matthew as of 8 am from the National Hurricane Center. Things to note since my last posting:

1. Matthew became a category 5 hurricane – the strongest level on a scale of 1 to 5. It has weakened slightly since then but still a major hurricane (major hurricane = 3 or higher on the scale based on wind speeds)
2. The forecast path of Matthew has slowed down by the NHC as seen above. It will only be of the Georgia coast by 2 am Saturday. Clouds and rain will be further north. A slow moving hurricane, while it might be good for the US in this case, is not good for where the hurricane is impacting. Slower = more time for devastating winds and rains

Above is a current satellite loop of the hurricane. The eye is still visible.

Where does Matthew go from here? The official NHC track is the darker line. At this time it looks to move north towards the outer banks of North Carolina and then get pushed further to the NE from an approaching cold front later this week into the weekend. As of right now this forecast looks good. But hurricanes can have a mind of their own. As you can see above, there a few models that bring him very close to western new jersey area! Continue to stay current on the storm.

Hurricane Matthew 11am Update

Matthew is now a category 3 hurricane which is considered major. So why am I blogging about this in a western New Jersey weather blog? Well look at the map above and see which way the National Hurricane Center thinks it will be heading. It looks to move up the east coast of the US next week. The big question is how close does it get to the coast and does it curve away at any point?

My early thoughts are it will continue north to near the North Carolina coast. then a cold front which should be moving east across the country next week will act as a kicker to move it further to the east and not have an impact any further north, other than rough seas of course.