Matthew drenching Central America and Mexico
Tropical Storm Matthew continues to dump heavy rains over Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and neighboring regions of Mexico today. Puerto Barrios, in northern Guatemala, has received 4.57" of rain in the past 24 hours. With Matthew expected to slow down and dissipate by Sunday, the storm's heavy rains of 6 - 15 inches can be expected to cause severe flooding and dangerous mudslides. The rains are of particular concern for Guatemala, which suffered its rainiest August in its history, followed by the landfall of Tropical Depression 11E during the first week of September, which dumped torrential rains on the country that triggered flooding and mudslides that killed at least 48 Guatemalans.
Figure 1. Visible satellite image from NASA's Terra satellite taken yesterday, showing Tropical Storm Matthew approaching landfall.
Figure 2. Forecast rain amounts for the 5-day period beginning at 2am EDT today (Saturday, September 25) as predicted by this morning's 2am EDT (6Z) run of the GFDL. Very heavy rains in excess of eight inches (yellow colors) are predicted for portions of Central America along Matthew's track. Image credit: Morris Bender, NOAA/GFDL.
Lisa
Tropical Storm Lisa pulled a bit of a surprise last night, intensifying into a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds in the far Eastern Atlantic. Lisa's longitude of 27.9W at the time made it the 10th strongest hurricane so far east in the Atlantic. Record keeping began in 1851, but it is likely that many hurricanes stronger than Lisa were missed prior to the advent of reliable satellite coverage in 1974. Lisa is even farther east than Category 4 Hurricane Julia, which earlier this month set the record for strongest hurricane ever recorded so far east. Lisa's glory will be short-lived, though, as strong upper level winds out of the west are expected to increase tonight, bringing high wind shear of 20 - 45 knots over the storm. The high shear may be capable of destroying the storm by early next week. It appears unlikely that Lisa will affect any land areas.
Forecast for the rest of the tropics
Most of the models continue to predict that by Wednesday, the remnants of Matthew, and/or a piece of a tropical disturbance over the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Guatemala, will evolve into a huge and very wet low pressure system that will start spinning over Central America and the Western Caribbean. NHC has been referring to this expected storm as a "monsoon low", and these sorts of storms are very dangerous for Central America and the Western Caribbean, even if they do not develop into a tropical storm. In October 2007, a similar monsoon low I dubbed "the sleeping giant" spent a week spinning over the region, dumping very heavy rains over all of Central America and the countries bordering the Western Caribbean. Rains from this system triggered flooding that killed 45 people in Haiti, damaged thousands of homes in Cuba, and caused havoc in Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Mexico, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and the Bahamas. A similar type of storm is likely to develop on Wednesday and Thursday, and most of Central America and the nations surrounding the Western Caribbean can expect to see dangerous flooding rains develop this week in association with this giant low. Most of the models also predict that this big low will eventually develop into a tropical storm or hurricane that would be drawn northwards over Cuba late in the week, and threaten the Bahamas, Florida, or the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coast. This is an exceptionally difficult system to forecast correctly, and the models have been coming up with some pretty unusual solutions as to what might happen. We'll just have to wait and see what unfolds over the next few days.
I'll have an update Sunday by 2pm.
Jeff Masters
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As much as I agree with you, you really shouldn't bash bastardi like that.
TROPICAL DEPRESSION MATTHEW IS CENTERED INLAND OVER THE NORTHERN GUATEMALA REGION NEAR 17.4N 89.4W AT 25/2100 UTC OR ABOUT 105 MILES SOUTHWEST OF CHETUMAL MEXICO MOVING NW AT 12 KT. ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1003 MB. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WIND SPEED IS 30 KT WITH GUSTS TO 40 KT. SEE LATEST NHC INTERMEDIATE PUBLIC ADVISORY UNDER AWIPS/WMO HEADERS MIATCPAT5/WTNT35 KNHC AND THE FULL FORECAST/ADVISORY UNDER AWIPS/WMO HEADERS MIATCMAT5/WTNT25 KNHC FOR MORE DETAILS.
RAINFALL ASSOCIATED WITH MATTHEW CONTINUES TO BE THE MAIN THREAT TO CENTRAL AMERICA AND IS LIKELY TO CONTINUE EVEN AFTER MATTHEW HAS DISSIPATED. TOTAL RAIN ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 10 INCHES OVER PORTIONS OF HONDURAS... GUATEMALA...BELIZE AND ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF UP TO 15 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. THESE RAINS COULD PRODUCE LIFE THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND MUD SLIDES. CURRENTLY...NUMEROUS STRONG CONVECTION IS OVER GUATEMALA AND MEXICO FROM 15N-19N BETWEEN 89W-92W...WITH NUMEROUS MODERATE/SCATTERED STRONG CONVECTION FROM 11N-21N BETWEEN 78W-94W.
That is probably the best description I have seen yet. Thanks!
Station 42057
NDBC
Location: 16.834N 81.501W
Conditions as of:
Sat, 25 Sep 2010 22:50:00 UTC
Winds: E (100°) at 13.6 kt gusting to 15.5 kt
Significant Wave Height: 4.3 ft
Dominant Wave Period: 5 sec
Atmospheric Pressure: 29.77 in and falling
Air Temperature: 83.1 F
Dew Point: 76.1 F
Water Temperature: 85.3 F
the models had it coming from the west.
Maybe north of matthew?
Or could it be approx. 15N 80W?
WVLoop
Yeah, that's what worried me the most. This year it seems even when the homebrew systems don't manage to deepen pressure or spin up their windfields, they are carrying a metric buttload of rain.
Reasoning for Igor: SAB, and ADT both maintained a 7.0 for the system on the 15th. 155 is only 1 mph short anyways.
Alex, Bonnie, Earl, and Hermine affected the USA in some way. He was pretty accurate so far.
What did you do to 42058? Not even scheduled yet????
Obviously, it is hard to say that a storm will hit somewhere in Florida. No guarantees of course because tracks are hard to forecast and change but I think especially in October, Florida is at risk due to the jet stream dipping further south towards Florida.
Are there any updates as to which part of Florida is at risk next week? West Coast? or east coast?
I am confused what are you talking about? Did something change that I do not know about I just looked at the 18z and it has 2 storms?
I guess they were forecasting matthew to draw energy from a weak area of low pressure in the pacific, and spin it around its broad circulation but then as it does that the circulation would strengthen and develop just east of were matthew falls apart, and then it starts to take over the remnant circulation left over by matthew..
I guess they might have not taken into the equation the ULL and wave in the eastern carribean coming into the equation.. or maybe they were.. who knows..
all I know is that something might be trying to consolidate east of Honduras..
All kidding aside, in terms of where and when the season began. In terms of when CV season started (and may be ending). And in terms of SAL and shear-a season that has stayed close to climatology. SST's were the big anomaly.
Early recurvature could be considered anomalous by some folks. Even disappointing!
Whatever forms down there should move north in time.
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