matthew-100616

Hurricane Matthew strengthening again; strongest hurricane to affect area in living memory

197 thoughts on “Hurricane Matthew strengthening again; strongest hurricane to affect area in living memory

  1. I don't think we have anyone in the area but this storm's so dangerous that I'm making this a sticky. Category 4 in a place that hasn't had a major hurricane since… I don't even know when, but it was way before I was born. I'll check on that.

    1. Thanks, good idea. Matthew is breaking all kinds of records, for strength, longevity, track, etc.

      I was very worried about an Event at the | Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station | but the storm's likely going to pass north of the Homestead area.

      If Matthew keeps on the predicted track, though, it will roll over the |||||| Kennedy Space Center Complex | as a Cat 4 or 5. For the KSC and all the towns on the upper Florida coast, this is catastrophic.

        1. Just like Christie, Scott looks at government as a trough for his friends and a hammer to his enemies. Any benefit to his constituents is an after thought, unless he gets some direct benefit.

          1. They get their constiuents all riled up about how terrible "liberals" are, but California is arguably the most progressive state in the nation, the most populous, with high working poor, high minority and undocumented populations, high taxes, incredible social welfare programs that even reach strongly into the middle class and that even I benefit directly from, and yet somehow California is also the most prosperous state in the nation. If it were a sovereign state we'd have something like the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world.

            Our attorney general aggressively goes after corporate grift (and she's probably going to be our next senator), and somehow people don't scream that she's hurting job creators.

            I wish people in Florida would wake up and start voting in their own interests.

        1. Very. Even though the winds will be less on the left upper quadrant of the storm, the storm surge and torrential rain flooding will be awful and the damage could be nearly total. I saw firsthand the devastation Sandy caused and that was a Category 1 at landfall. I'm afraid to even look at the tide predictions, because if thing hits at high tide all is lost.

          1. And a tiny shift left in the track brings the worst onshore. Even the left side is probably going to be cat 3 winds in the eyewall though. They're also talking like 6-9 feet of storm surge too.

  2. So for East-Central Florida this is what I found.

    Jeanne in 2004 was a category 3.
    Dora in 1964 was a category 3.
    Last I could find in the area at cat 4 was a hurricane in 1949. It's been a long time.

  3. I've got old friends in Boynton Beach FL and Hilton Head SC that have been evacuated. The ones in Hilton Head left CA years ago because they feared earthquakes. Go figure.

          1. Depending upon which doomsday scenario you subscribe to, SoCal is always overdue for an earthquake/conflagration/sharknado.

      1. Anytime anybody in the US complains about how tough their life is, remind them that they are not Haitian. Those people have had nothing but awful things happening.

        1. There was a story a few years ago of post-earthquake protests in Haiti and that the protesters were so poor that the only incendiaries they could throw was lighted poo.

  4. …12 PM POSITION UPDATE…

    SUMMARY OF 1200 PM EDT…1600 UTC…INFORMATION
    ———————————————–
    LOCATION…25.3N 78.0W
    ABOUT 45 MI…70 KM WNW OF NASSAU BAHAMAS
    ABOUT 160 MI…260 KM SE OF WEST PALM BEACH
    MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…140 MPH…220 KM/H
    PRESENT MOVEMENT…NW OR 325 DEGREES AT 14 MPH…22 KM/H
    MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…940 MB…27.76 INCHES

  5. Andrew Bieszad, a contributor to Shoebat.com, the website run by anti-gay extremists Walid and Theodore Shoebat, has some thoughts about Hurricane Matthew, which is expected to strike the East Coast of the United States in the coming days: "Hurricane Matthew Is The Wrath Of God Poured Out On The Cities Of Orlando And Savannah For Supporting The Evil Sodomites."
    God is sending this hurricane, Bieszad states, as "a sign of His anger" against America for tolerating homosexuality and to thwart a gay pride festival scheduled to take place in Orlando this weekend.
    "You want to stop not this hurricane, but future catastrophes?" he asks. "Then stop sinning, especially with sodomy":

      1. I guess God is also bad at making storms aim at their targets considering Orlando is more likely to get strong TS/weak cat 1 winds instead of the 4.

          1. I wonder if my avoidance of sin through trying not to be a hypocrite will work as well. I'll get back to you on that.

    1. OK, so the Human Race invented warfare, pogroms, genocide, weapons capable of sterilizing the planet and widespread environmental destruction and it's Sodomy that really pisses God off.

      I don't think you're reading that Book of yours right.

          1. I was in Washington, D.C. during Isabel and sometime in the middle of the storm I woke up, thought, ooh, I should see what it's like outside, so I opened the front door, and it felt like being blasted with tiny needles, which I assume was the raindrops being blown sideways at more than a hundred miles per hour.

            (Closed the door super fast.)

          2. I have hiked in 70 mph winds on Mt Washington in NH, and felt 100 mph gusts. There is no way I could hike in anything stronger than about 70 mph- especially since at that speed it's typically gusty and you expend way too much energy just maintaining your balance. Snow flurries felt like I was being sandblasted. Add to that faster winds, and the debris? Anyone who says that's not a problem is not taking their medication.

          3. Am I the only person left on earth that managed to be on the top of Mt Washington with sunny skies and <10 mph winds?

          4. Once in the summer I was up there and it was about 55F with light winds. Another time, climbing up 4th of July weekend, it was 29F, 80 mph winds and snowing at the top. We didn't summit that day. Rain/snow line was right at the headwall of the ravines, nasty.

  6. @NWSMiami

    1203 PM: measured 49 mph wind gust in #Miami from first significant #Matthew rain band. These winds capable of downing trees/power lines.

    1. Inflow from the SW and should get better once it passes that island. Wouldn't be surprised if the eye got more obvious than it currently is in a few hours.

  7. I thought my nephew and his family were back home from Disney World already, but I just heard that they're heading west from Orlando now.

      1. Yeah, my friends on Sanibel Island aren't even talking about it, and weather is almost the only thing they have to talk about.

  8. …1 PM POSITION UPDATE…

    An automated station in the Berry Islands, Bahamas, reported a
    sustained wind of 59 mph (95 km/h), with gusts to 76 mph (120
    km/h) during the past hour.

    SUMMARY OF 100 PM EDT…1700 UTC…INFORMATION
    ———————————————–
    LOCATION…25.5N 78.2W
    ABOUT 80 MI…125 KM SSE OF FREEPORT BAHAMAS
    ABOUT 145 MI…230 KM SE OF WEST PALM BEACH
    MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…140 MPH…220 KM/H
    PRESENT MOVEMENT…NW OR 325 DEGREES AT 14 MPH…22 KM/H
    MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…940 MB…27.76 INCHES

    1. Station SBGF1 (Little Bahama)
      NDBC
      Location: 26.704N 78.995W
      Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2016 17:00:00 UTC
      Winds: NE (40°) at 36.9 kt gusting to 41.0 kt
      Atmospheric Pressure: 29.58 in and falling rapidly
      Air Temperature: 77.5 F
      Dew Point: 73.9 F

      That's 42 and 47 mph, respectively. Widespread power outages are only the beginning.

  9. BULLETIN
    HURRICANE MATTHEW INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 34A
    NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL142016
    200 PM EDT THU OCT 06 2016

    …HURRICANE MATTHEW RELENTLESSLY POUNDING THE BAHAMAS…
    …POTENTIALLY DISASTROUS IMPACTS FOR FLORIDA…

    SUMMARY OF 200 PM EDT…1800 UTC…INFORMATION
    ———————————————-
    LOCATION…25.7N 78.4W
    ABOUT 65 MI…100 KM SSE OF NASSAU
    ABOUT 125 MI…205 KM ESE OF WEST PALM BEACH FLORIDA
    MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…140 MPH…220 KM/H
    PRESENT MOVEMENT…NW OR 325 DEGREES AT 14 MPH…22 KM/H
    MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…939 MB…27.73 INCHES

          1. Oh yeah, I've had trouble with pretty much every hurricane-related site since Matthew was near Colombia. It's going to be crazy tonight.

          2. I used to have the weatherbug widget on my 'puter, but it slowed me to worse than a crawl during hurricane season.

  10. Some other blog comment lmao

    1292. Nolehead
    5:59 PM GMT on October 06, 2016
    i know everyone will think i'm crazy but hear me out, what if the govt is going to use HARRP to deflect the system? i mean the H hunter leaves with whatever problem it had, now satellites are down?? just could be a coincidence but nothing would surprise me anymore.

  11. It's basically a given that the person behind it is a NWS meteorologist somewhere. Did you see the capybara vs beaver flash flood warning post?

    1. Oh, whoever it is *has* to be an insider and yes, that FF warning was hysterical

      IT Podunk @ NWSPodunk Oct 3

      Who are we? Meteorologists! What do we want? We'll let the next shift deal with it.

  12. Heard from my friend Louie in Melbourne, he is driving north through Georgia right now with the wife and kids, no hotels with vacancy. I sent an email to BadKitty, he's in St Augustine…

    1. Oh boy, BK's probably hunkered down in an evac shelter now. Hope he's got WiFi.

      I ran from Bob like that: straight across Maine, NH and VT – no hotel rooms, torrential rain bands 2 lane highway, endless RV's. Just had to keep driving. Fun.

  13. Matthew can be seen on Miami radar now. Very clear double eyewall structure. That would normally mean a slight weakening of the winds over the next 12-24 hours, but that also means a much wider hurricane-force windfield.

      1. Yeah, pretty clear from that too. That eye could be huge for a while once the inner core dissipates and the new one regenerates.

  14. HURRICANE MATTHEW TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
    NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL142016
    300 PM EDT THU OCT 06 2016

    …3 PM EDT POSITION UPDATE…

    A NOAA station at Settlement Point on Grand Bahama recently reported
    a sustained wind of 45 mph (72 km/h) and a wind gust of 48 mph
    (78 km/h). A National Ocean Service station at Lake Worth Pier,
    Florida, recently reported a sustained wind of 40 mph (65 km/h) and
    a wind gust of 47 mph (76 km/h).

    SUMMARY OF 300 PM EDT…1900 UTC…INFORMATION
    ———————————————–
    LOCATION…25.8N 78.3W
    ABOUT 55 MI…90 KM SSE OF FREEPORT BAHAMAS
    ABOUT 130 MI…205 KM ESE OF WEST PALM BEACH FLORIDA
    MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…140 MPH…220 KM/H
    PRESENT MOVEMENT…NW OR 325 DEGREES AT 14 MPH…22 KM/H
    MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…939 MB…27.73 INCHES

    $$
    Forecaster Brennan

          1. City cop truck, probably chasing fools off the beach. Saw it earlier.

            JFC some idiot's out with a surfboard GO THE FUCK HOME YOU BLITHERING IDIOT

    1. I can't help thinking that those people standing out there on the beach in those cams are now not in a position to get very far inland when this hits. Then again: Florida Man.

      1. That's a 9' flood zone, the secondary roads and bridge approaches are probably flooding out and the rain and high winds are closing in now, so, yes, that's where they will have to be.

  15. Hmm. Would catching whiffs of what you're vacuum filtering, dissolving in conc HCl make a headache better or worse? Asking for a friend…

  16. http://wxug.us/224f3

    glasspusher brought up the Wundermap so here's a link to a decent view for the current moment. Will likely have to shift it north in a while but this gets the most important areas for now.

  17. The Berry Islands ITHEBAHA5
    PWS RainWise MK-III

    Temperature 81.6 °F
    Humidity 96%
    Precipitation 24.86 in

    Wind Speed 88 mph
    Wind Gust 94 mph
    Wind Direction East
    Pressure 29.71 in

    1. I wanna shake the appendage of whatever being has a PWS that can stand up in those winds. Not trivial!

      Edit: Berry Berry windy!

  18. Recon data decoded from http://tropicalatlantic.com/recon/

    Product: NOAA Vortex Message (URNT12 KWBC)
    Transmitted: 6th day of the month at 19:41Z
    Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
    Aircraft: Lockheed WP-3D Orion (Reg. Num. N43RF)
    Storm Number & Year: 14 in 2016
    Storm Name: Matthew (flight in the North Atlantic basin)
    Mission Number: 30
    Observation Number: 04
    A. Time of Center Fix: 6th day of the month at 19:17:46Z
    B. Center Fix Coordinates: 25°50'N 78°22'W (25.8333N 78.3667W)
    B. Center Fix Location: 83 statute miles (134 km) to the NW (311°) from Nassau, Bahamas.
    C. Minimum Height at Standard Level: 2,572m (8,438ft) at 700mb
    D. Estimated (by SFMR or visually) Maximum Surface Wind Inbound: 75kts (~ 86.3mph)
    E. Location of the Estimated Maximum Surface Wind Inbound: 8 nautical miles (9 statute miles) to the SSW (205°) of center fix
    F. Maximum Flight Level Wind Inbound: From 302° at 91kts (From the WNW at ~ 104.7mph)
    G. Location of Maximum Flight Level Wind Inbound: 9 nautical miles (10 statute miles) to the SSW (207°) of center fix
    H. Minimum Sea Level Pressure: 936mb (27.64 inHg)
    I. Maximum Flight Level Temp & Pressure Altitude Outside Eye: 14°C (57°F) at a pressure alt. of 3,048m (10,000ft)
    J. Maximum Flight Level Temp & Pressure Altitude Inside Eye: 19°C (66°F) at a pressure alt. of 3,055m (10,023ft)
    K. Dewpoint Temp (collected at same location as temp inside eye): 13°C (55°F)
    K. Sea Surface Temp (collected at same location as temp inside eye): Not Available
    L. Eye Character: Closed Wall
    M. Eye Shape: Concentric (has an inner and outer eye)
    M. Inner Eye Diameter: 10 nautical miles (12 statute miles)
    M. Outer Eye Diameter: 65 nautical miles (75 statute miles)
    N. Fix Determined By: Penetration, Radar, Wind, Pressure and Temperature
    N. Fix Level: 700mb
    O. Navigational Fix Accuracy: 0.01 nautical miles
    O. Meteorological Accuracy: 1 nautical mile

    Remarks Section:
    Maximum Outbound and Flight Level Wind: 121kts (~ 139.2mph) which was observed 10 nautical miles (12 statute miles) to the NE (41°) from the flight level center at 19:20:24Z
    Maximum Flight Level Temp: 19°C (66°F) which was observed 5 nautical miles to the NE (37°) from the flight level center
    Dropsonde Surface Wind at Center: From 15° at 7kts (From the NNE at 8mph)

      1. The 75 mile wide outer eye was what amazed me. That'll shrink over time, but that's going to cause a much wider area of damaging winds than Matthew had been before. The maximum winds might go down a bit, though (and the recon data seems to suggest that despite the pressure drop)

  19. HURRICANE MATTHEW TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
    NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL142016
    400 PM EDT THU OCT 06 2016

    …4 PM EDT POSITION UPDATE…

    A NOAA station at Settlement Point on Grand Bahama recently reported
    a sustained wind of 47 mph (76 km/h) and a wind gust of 55 mph
    (89 km/h). A National Ocean Service station at Lake Worth Pier,
    Florida, recently reported a sustained wind of 38 mph (61 km/h) and
    a wind gust of 45 mph (72 km/h).

    SUMMARY OF 400 PM EDT…2000 UTC…INFORMATION
    ———————————————–
    LOCATION…26.0N 78.4W
    ABOUT 40 MI…70 KM SE OF FREEPORT BAHAMAS
    ABOUT 115 MI…185 KM ESE OF WEST PALM BEACH FLORIDA
    MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…140 MPH…220 KM/H
    PRESENT MOVEMENT…NW OR 325 DEGREES AT 14 MPH…22 KM/H
    MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…938 MB…27.70 INCHES

    $$
    Forecaster Brennan

  20. Hey, Snow, this is your thread, I'm wondering if maybe at some point fairly soon you could start a fresh one? It's just an idea. My thinking is that this isn't like a debate blog where we don't really go back in the thread much. Since we are going to be with Matthew for a few days it might be easier to follow if we don't let it get to ten pages and we have to click through piles of pages to get to the end.

    If not, no worries.

  21. I never had a windshield until I bought a new bike Y2K. How dumb of me! Also, I generally don't go riding in the rain, but when you're 3000 miles from home, you don't have a choice.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *