For all of our Southeastern US readers, be safe and don’t be stupid as Hurricane Matthew bears down.
An 11:03 pm Wednesday fix from the Air Force hurricane hunters found that Matthew had finally closed off its eyewall, and the central pressure had dropped to 959 mb. In its 11 pm EDT discussion, NHC noted that Matthew’s eye–once again distinct on satellite imagery–has contracted to about 17 miles wide, another sign of strengthening. It may take until midday Thursday for any substantial drop in Matthew’s pressure to result in a stronger wind field. NHC predicts that Matthew will again hit Category 4 intensity by Thursday evening. The 00Z Thursday SHIPS model forecast gave an 11% chance that Matthew would intensify enough to become a Category 5 storm again by Thursday night….
Should Matthew continue on its due-northwest track, it would come uncomfortably close to making landfall along the urban corridor from Miami to Palm Beach. Our most reliable track models insist that Matthew will begin angling just to the right before landfall, which would keep the southern part of this corridor on Matthew’s weaker side. Broward County (including Fort Lauderdale) is in a hurricane warning, while Miami-Dade County is in a tropical storm warning. The risk of dangerous impacts, including hurricane-force winds, ramps up greatly from Palm Beach northward. The most recent NHC forecast (see Figure 2 above) keeps Matthew as a Category 4 hurricane as it reaches the Melbourne area on Friday morning and a strong Category 3 by Friday evening just east of Jacksonville.
A reminder, Category 5 is what Andrew and Katrina were. Big, bad voodoo. Sandy despite all of her destruction was only a middling Category 1 storm when it came ashore in New Jersey. Matthew is a big powerful storm so please don’t be stupid, get away from the coast if possible and please don’t go surfing.