Want Hot Weather? Go To Miami. It's Extreme Down There

I definitely complained about this April snow shower in St. Albans,
Vermont on Friday. Maybe I should have been counting my blessings,
given the trouble and potential trouble record warm air
and water is creating in and near Florida, Cuba and
the Gulf of Mexico 

As I've been mentioning the past few days, Ma Nature has hit the pause button on spring in many areas over the past few days.

A snowstorms swept across the nation, originating in Colorado and going all the way to southern and central New England this morning. Freeze warnings were up yet again in much of the nations middle.

Here in Vermont, temperatures are expected to stay mostly below normal for the next week or so.  It snowed at my St. Albans, Vermont home yesterday for the third day in a row.

Want an antidote to the chill? Head to southern Florida. Well, virtually, anyway, I don't recommend unnecessary travel in this coronavirus pandemic.

Those cold fronts that have been sweeping through the eastern two thirds of the nation keep getting hung up in northern Florida, and never creeping any more south than that.  The result is hot times, really hot times, in places like Miami.

Miami isn't exactly an ice box to start with. The  normal high temperature in Miami this time of year is in the low 80s, with a normal ovenight temperature in the upper 60s.  That's what we would consider a stuffy, rather uncomfortably humid July day here in Vermont.

But to Miamians, normal weather this time of year really isn't that bad. What's been going on so far this month is bad, by their standards.

Six days so far this month have topped 90 degrees. Nights have been brutal. Only one night so far this month got below 70 degrees, and nine days had "low" temperatures of 75 degrees or more. April as a whole is running about seven degrees warmer than normal this  month. This after a March that was 4.6 degrees on the hot side and featured three days up in the 90s.

Climate researcher Brian McNoldy said the first of April was the warmest on record by a full two degrees, and the area is experiencing weather this month more typical of early June. McNoldy said via Twitter that the four consecutive nights recently that stayed at 78 above in Miami broke the record for earliest occurence of that happening by two weeks. "The climate system is broken," he opined.

Well, there's lots of evidence around the globe for that idea, despite the recent relatively brief spell of cool weather well north of Florida.

Miami has gotten no relief from the heat in recent years. In records dating back to 1896, there is a three-way tie for hottest year on record: 2015, 2017 and 2019.  Six of the top 10 hottest years there have been in the past decade.

People in Miami traditionally look forward to winter cold fronts that sweep through the state and off the coast toward Cuba. That's happening with less and less frequency.  For instance this past winter, there was only one brief spell of chilly weather in Miami - back in mid-January when temperatures fell to near 40 degrees. That's cold for South Florida, but certainly not record breaking.

Speaking of Cuba, that nation has been sharing in the extreme heat  On April 13, Cuba reported its hottest temperature on record for the whole nation. It was 102.74 degrees in Veguitas.  That broke the national record set just last year, reports Radio Havana Cuba.

Surrounding water has warmed up a lot, which has possible implications for the weeks and months ahead. The whole Gulf Coast of the United States, and presumably much of the Gulf of Mexico itself, are just coming off the warmest winter on record, or at least one of the warmest on record.

Gulf of Mexico water temperatures are well above normal as a result.  I can't help but wonder if those warm waters are contributing to the terrible start to the tornado season in the South.

The main reasons for these severe storms has been a series of storms coming across the nation from California to the East Coast.  Each of those storms pulls toasty, humid air northward from the Gulf, which is one critical ingredient for tornado formation.

I can't help but wonder if the air is even warmer, even more humid than it would otherwise be if Gulf of Mexico temperatures were closer to normal.  The warmer and more humid the air, the more juice for severe storms and flooding rains.

Oh, and by the way, more severe storms, flooding and possible tornadoes are expected this Sunday in the Gulf Coast States.

If the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast of the United States remains warmer than normal, as it is now, that could also add more fuel to the fire for hurricanes later this summer and autumn.

It's even possible a tropical or subtropical system or two could form in this unusually warm Gulf of Mexico before the "official" start of hurricane season on June 1.  Tropical systems need nice hot water to form, and the Gulf has plenty of that. It all depends on whether other overall weather patterns can help trigger early tropical systems, and it's too early now to figure that one out.

With all this warm air and water trouble in the South, maybe I shouldn't be complaining about our April Vermont snow showers so much.

Irma Starts Wrecking Florida Today

Just part of the Tampa Bay area. You can see how
vulnerable the heavily populated area would be
to a storm surge from a hurricane like Irma.

Welcome to the horrible weekend of Hurricane Irma.

The big storm is still playing around with Florida, keeping everyone wondering which part of the state it's going to nail hardest.

It really hadn't started its northward turn yet, and was moving along the northern Cuban coast.

This interaction with land has kinda, sorta weakened Irma ever so slightly, but as I said yesterday, don't focus on the word "weaken." It still is and will be a horrible, horrible hurricane.

It's a huge storm in area, so a wide area is going to get tropical force and hurricane force winds.

The current thinking  now is it will turn north in time to make landfall near Key West, Florida, which is just terrible, given how low and exposed the keys are.

Sustained winds could still be 140 or 150 mph or so once Irma reaches the Keys, depending  upon how much Cuba's land interfered with Irma's circulation, and how much it can restrengthen over water.

Re-strengthening is forecast once Irma leaves Cuba.

I don't think I've ever seen as dire a warning from a National Weather Service office as I did last night when the NWS meteorologists in Key West, Florida said this:  "This is as real as it gets. Nowhere in the Florida Keys will be safe."

Adds Ed Rappaport, acting director of the National Hurricane Center: "It's not clear that it's a survivable situation for anybody that is still there in the Keys."

I really, really hope everybody left.

It now looks like Irma will move north along the western Florida coast, not eastern as was projected a few days ago. Irma is a huge sized hurricane, so that's kind of cold comfort for eastern Florida. Though it might not be quite as bad in places like Miami and Fort Lauderdale as first feared, it's going to be very dangerous there, with storm surges and hurricane strength winds.

TAMPA BAY WORRIES

The cities that are now in real trouble are Naples, Tampa and St. Petersburg.

Destruction from Irma in the Caribbean islands. 

The Tampa Bay region has always been regarded as particularly vulnerable to strong hurricanes. Thousands upon thousands of people have built homes on spits of land that are barely above sea level.

Barely five weeks ago, the New Orleans Times Picayune had a big article about how the Tampa Bay area is likely the most vulnerable city in America to a catastrophic hurricane. This is the same publication that predicted catastrophe for New Orleans months before Katrina.

Here's just one scary paragraph from the Times Picayune article, one that leaves everyone in a cold sweat now that Irma looms:

"By a stroke of gambler's luck, Tampa Bay hasn't suffered a direct hit from a hurricane as powerful as a category 3 or higher in nearly a century. Tampa has doubled down on a bet that another won't strike anytime soon, investing billions of dollars n high-rise condominiums along the waterfront and shipping port upgrades and expanding a hospital on an island in the middle of the bay to make it one of the largest in the state."

Oh, and by the way, natural processes and sea level rises due to global warming have made water during normal times closer to all these buildings. The Tampa Bay area experiences some flooding in even small storms.

How about this from the Times Picayune:  "Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn's warning was even starker. Standing outside City Hall last year, he described what would happen if a hurricane as small as a category 3 with 110 to 130 mph winds hit downtown:

'Where you're standing now would be 15 feet under water.'"

A guess we can still hope for Tampa's gambler's luck and Irma will somehow go west or east of Tampa, or weakens more than expected, but at best, this will still be an enormous deadly mess.

At the moment, the Irma forecast for the Tampa Bay area is winds of 90 to 110 mph with gusts to 135 mph, with a three to five foot storm surge. Much of the property around Tampa Bay is at elevations of five feet or less.

IRMA'S RECORDS

The records Irma has set are pretty amazing.

The Washington Post, in a terrific explanation of Irma's strength and staying power, says Irma "lucked out" in a variety of ways.

The hurricane threaded the needle between land masses. Landfalls almost always weaken hurricanes terribly quickly, unless they pass over such tiny islands as Barbuda and St. Martin, as Irma did.

Wind shear, which is strong or shifting winds in the upper atmosphere, tend to quash hurricanes. Wind shear over the Atlantic has been particularly weak this year, so hurricanes in the Atlantic during 2017 have a better chance of getting really, really strong.

That's a big reason why Hurricanes Harvey and now Jose are so strong, joining the intensity of Irma.

Steering currents are important as to where hurricanes go. The Bermuda High, the area of high pressure in the Atlantic that always asserts itself in the summer, has been stronger and further west than usual. That helps hurricanes maintain a generally westward motion to the south of the Bermuda High.

Another view of Irma's destruction

Had the Bermuda high been weaker, it would have been easier for storms like Harvey and Irma to recurve northward into the middle part of the North Atlantic, where they would have died harmless deaths.

(Even so, hurricanes this year can still curve north. After trashing islands previously wrecked by Irma, Hurricane Jose will likely turn north well before reaching North America, so it's no real threat to the United States.)

Finally, Atlantic Ocean waters in most areas are warmer than normal. And yes, this has to do with climate change.  As climate change progresses, we won't necessarily have to contend with more hurricanes than we do now, but chances are whatever hurricanes form have a higher potential of becoming wicked strong.

The Atlantic Ocean has always produced incredibly formidable hurricanes, but usually, the western Pacific creates the kings of all tropical systems. (They're called typhoons over there; typhoons and hurricanes are exactly the same thing.)

Not this year.

The Washington Post says this about Irma:

"When the storm maintained wind speeds of at least 180 mph for 37 hours, it set a record for most intense storm for such a long duration - anywhere on Earth. 

Super Typgoon Haiyan (Yolanda) - which devastated the Philippines and killed more than 6,000 people in 2013, was the previous record holder at 24 hours"

That the Atlantic Ocean should produce a hurricane as strong as Irma isn't a slam dunk proof of global warming. Still, it should concern us all that a lot of tropical systems - hurricanes and typhoons and whatnot - have been setting records for intensity in recent years.

Some of that surely has to do with better data collection......

Irma is an overwhelming hurricane, in a year we've already been overwhelmed by Hurricane Harvey.

When this type of thing happens, I do what human nature tends to do: I shut down the big picture and look at some of the picky details, which helps us all cope. The gallows humor in these situations usually helps, too.

So we turn to Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh Says Irma Is Liberal Conspiracy

Rush Limbaugh, that thundery blowhard of a radio host, informed us that week that we have nothing to worry about from Hurricane Irma.

As Slate points out, Limbaugh told us this week that liberal scientists and the media overhype and manipulate hurricane forecasts because they want to scare us into make us sign on to their "fake" global warming activism.

Slate quotes Limbaugh thusly:

"So the media benefits with the panic with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales.. I don't want to mention brand names because that's not the point. Let's all it Basement Depot. Basement Depot, huge, huge, business. Basement Depot spends gazillions of dollars every year in local advertising in hurricane forced areas in order to advance their global warming agenda."

I got quite a  few likes on social media this week when I suggested Limbaugh should stand on a Hurricane Irma-exposed beach to "prove" to us that the storm is just a liberal false flag.

Alas, it turns out Limbaugh is a total snowflake. He lives and broadcasts from South Florida, and he's fleeing the storm, just like many thousands of other. Sorry, no video of Rush blowing away in a rush of hurricane force winds for you!

Anyway, hang tight this weekend, Florida! We hope everybody makes it through OK

Matthew Battering Bahamas Big Time; Florida Braces

Stunned residents of Baracoa, Cuba
walk through their city, wrecked by Hurricane Matthew

NOON THURSDAY UPDATE:

Hurricane Matthew is an even greater threat to Florida than the grave news I had this morning.

As of 11 a.m., Matthew's top winds were up to 140 mph, and more strengthening is certainly possible.

This will cause several billion dollars in damage and is a very, very dangerous storm.

It's been more than a decade since a major hurricane has hit the United States, so we're not used to this.

The part of Florida that will either get hit or badly sideswiped by Matthew has not had a hurricane this strong in recorded history. (The worst of this will be from West Palm Beach north)

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is completely right when  he says if you were told to evacuate and didn't, "This storm will kill you."

Here's what the National Weather Service office in Melbourne, Florida says people should expect in that region:

"Structural damage to sturdy buildings, some with complete roof and wall failures. Complete destruction of mobile homes. Damage may be accentuated by large airborne projectiles. Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months."

There's also going to be terrible storm surge flooding and torrential rains that will flood neighborhoods and streets.

Matthew is very likely to be even worse than the series of hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004.

This hurricane will begin to tear apart eastern Florida later today and be at its worst tonight and Friday. Be very careful and safe if you're down in that area.

By the way, as you'll see in the previous discussion below, Matthew had killed at least 25 people. That death toll had risen to 140 by 1 p.m. EDT  today, says Reuters. Expect those numbers to go up, unfortunately.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

Persistent and destruction Hurricane Matthew was pounding the Bahamas terribly early this morning as it slowly steamed toward a showdown with Florida.

It appears Category 3 Matthew is scoring a direct hit on the city of Nassau in the Bahamas today.

The resort city has a population of nearly 250,000 and I'm sure it's a terrifying day there.  Winds are forecast to gust as high as 130 mph in that city today.

Matthew seemed to be strengthening this morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. Its top sustained winds were 125 mph and could easily rise as it approaches Florida.

Forecasts for its track right along the Florida east coast have been consistent for a couple days now and are still holding firm.

The trick is, a tiny deviation in Matthew's path could make all the difference in Florida. If it moves a little more to the left, it will crash into Florida's coastline with destructive force, making it one of the worst hurricanes in the nation's history.

If Matthew moves a little more to the right, it'll be more offshore. That would give eastern Florida a stormy night and Friday, but it wouldn't really be the end of the world.

Then the question is how far toward Georgia and South Carolina will Matthew get? By then, Matthew will be starting to weaken because of strong upper level winds, but it will still be a formidable storm.

Matthew is still forecast to take a hard right turn out to sea, but the question is, how close to Georgia and South Carolina will it get before it moves on?

Also, there will be negligible effects, if any up in the Northeast. Which is actually kind of bad. Up here in New England, we were hoping Matthew would stay offshore but throw some heavy rains our way to ease a drought.

Now, only light showers, unrelated to Matthew, are forecast in New England this weekend.

So far, Matthew has killed at least 25 people across the Caribbean, but that toll will rise as reports come in from hard to reach places, especially in Haiti.

The Guardian reports that rescue workers can't get to remote parts of Haiti due to washed out roads and bridges, debris and mudslides. At least 10 people have died in Haiti and no fewer than 3,200 homes were destroyed, but I'm sure we'll get even worse news once rescuers do get to remote corners of the poverty-stricken nation.

Matthew trashed the Cuban coastal city of Baracoa with a terrifying storm surge and hurricane winds.  Large parts of that city are now just a jumble of debris.

In the United States, at least two million people have fled coastal locations. About 12 million Americans are under hurricane watches or warnings. Matthew is easily the most disruptive storm since at least Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Here's a video of the destruction in Baracoa, Cuba:

Matthew, Slamming Bahamas, Targets Florida, South Carolina

Hurricane Matthew, with its eye over Haiti
early Tuesday, looks like a horrible sinister
face in this undoctored satellite image.  

Reports are still sketchy from Haiti after Category 4 Hurricane Matthew slammed that impoverished nation with winds of up to 145 mph and feet of rain.

However, I'm afraid we might ended up hearing of a high death toll, but I could be wrong. I hope I AM wrong.

The New York Times reports massive devastation in Haiti, with crops ruined, houses blown away and terrible flooding.

The Times' reports are still understandably sketchy, as it takes days for word to get out after a disaster like this.

However, humanitarian groups said since crops are destroyed, hunger will be a growing problem in Haiti. Plus, roads, houses and other infrastructure are destroyed, making things worse.

Matthew went over the eastern end of Cuba late Tuesday, and the mountainous terrain there weakened it somewhat. Top wind speeds in Matthew were "only" 125 mph as of early Wednesday morning.

The hurricane is going over very warm water now, and upper level winds are light, so chances are it could restrengthen. 

Which, of course, is bad for Florida. And probably the Carolinas. Matthew, as you might have heard, is expected to parallel Florida's east coast. It might or might not make landfall in Florida, and that will determine how bad things get down there.

If it stays offshore, there will be gusts to hurricane force, torrential rains and very bad beach erosion. That sounds terrible, but if it comes ashore, it will be much worse, with major hurricane winds and even more extreme destruction.

Same goes for the Carolinas if it manages to come ashore there.

NBC News and other news outlets say that people are preparing for this by stocking up on supplies to get them through what might be very long power failures.

A man pushes a bicycle through the flooded wreckage of
Les Cayes, Haiti Tuesday. Photo by Andres
Martinez Casares/Reuters.  

Shelves at places like Walmart throughout the region of have been stripped bare of bottled water, canned food and batteries.  Long lines of cars are at gas stations, their owners trying to fill up.

Possibly millions of people are on alert for possible evacuations.

Some are already leaving. A million people have been told to leave in coastal South Carolina. Hotels are already booked inland, for example in the central South Carolina city of Columbia, which is away from the coast.

It's looking less likely that Matthew will affect the Northeast, though that can't be ruled out. Most forecasters thought an incoming frontal system would pick up Matthew and pull it toward New England.

Now it looks like that weather front won't be strong enough to pull Matthew north, so it's becoming increasingly likely that it will head east out ot sea once it's done with North Carolina.

However, we still might be talking about Matthew for awhile. Though this is very, very iffy, some forecasts pull Matthew out over the Gulf Stream, where it could take advantage of very warm water and restrengthen (depending upon whether upper level winds are favorable) It could even loop back towards the United States in about a week or more, but that idea, as I said, is just speculation at this point.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Nicole has formed well to the northeast of Matthew over the open Atlantic.

At this point, it looks like Nicole will meander in the open waters south of Bermuda without ever becoming super strong. It's unlikely to get strong enough to become a hurricane.  However, Nicole might somehow influence the path of Matthew, possibly making the hurricane do strange turns or even loops. We'll see.

Persistent Matthew Bearing Down On Haiti, Still Confounding Forecasters

The outer effects of Matthew were starting to hit
Jamaica and Haiti Monday morning, as this visible
satellite image shows. 

Today's the day Hurricane Matthew will really start to affect humans dangerously.

We've been watching it for days, churning erratically across the Caribbean Sea.

Now, the weather is just beginning to get bad in Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba. Between now and Tuesday, we really need to hope for the best for the people in these countries.

There's already some flooding in Jamaica as the outer effects of Matthew hit that island. Things will go downhill all day today and tonight.

Hurricane conditions will reach Jamaica and Haiti tonight, eastern Cuba by Tuesday, and the Bahamas by Tuesday evening.

It's unusual for a hurricane to maintain Category 4 strength or higher for four days as Matthew has. The longest streak of being at continuously Category 4 or higher was Ivan in 2004, but most Atlantic hurricanes, if they get up to Category 4, only stay that strong for a couple days.

Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds of 130 to 156 mph  Category 5 storms are 157 mph or more.

As of this morning, Matthew had "weakened" to a storm with top sustained winds of 130 mph. The National Hurricane Center says fluctuations in strength almost always happen in powerful hurricanes like this, so that's not surprising.

Land interactions with Haiti and Cuba will sap Matthew's strength a little more, but it will still be a dangerous hurricane by the time it hits the Bahamas.

They're still predicting up to 40 inches of rain in Haiti, with 10 to 25 inches common in the hurricane zone in the three countries I mentioned.

As I said yesterday, this is guaranteed to cause devastating floods and mudslides, especially in Haiti, where hillsides are now devoid of trees. (They've all been cut down for firewood.)

Storm surges could reach up to 11 feet in Cuba, 10 feet in Haiti, and 10 to 15 feet in the Bahamas, says the National Hurricane Center.

This will totally devastate coastal areas, and hope those areas have been fully evacuated.  However, Reuters reports that a lot of people in Haiti and to some extent Jamaica have not exactly been rushing away from danger zones. These people are in big trouble.

Winds of 130 mph are devastating and dangerous, obviously, but the greatest loss of life from this storm will probably come from storm surges, flooding and mudslides.

As has been the case for days, we still don't know what Matthew will do once it gets to and past the Bahamas.

Computer forecasting models have been going back and forth like windshield wipers in a downpour. Depending on what run of models, and which models we're talking about, Matthew is a threat for anyone between Florida and Labrador, or it might not hit anything at all in the United States and Canada.

It's a slow moving slog for Matthew, so we'll be watching its path for days. At this point, it'll only get as far north as off the central Florida coast Friday, and east of Georgia Saturday. So us folks here in New England will be watching Matthew closely into early next week.

As I cautioned yesterday, don't take any one forecast for Matthew's track to heart. There will continue to be wide swings in the expected path of the hurricane, depending on what other weather systems surrounding Matthew decide to do.

Hurricane Matthew Continues Extremely Dangerous

Hurricane Matthew south of Jamaica and Haiti
Sunday morning, still packing winds of up to 150 mph.

It seems Haiti is in Matthew's crosshairs now.

Hurricane Matthew is still churning in the Caribbean, packing 150 mph winds.  

It's made its long-anticipated turn to the north, but it's position is just a hair east of where we thought it would be a couple days ago.

Which is sort of good news for Jamaica. That island nation will still get a terrible hurricane with devastating flash floods and horrific winds, but it won't be the direct blow we anticipated.

The very, VERY bad news is Matthew has its sights on the poverty stricken nation of Haiti. Most buildings there are not up to the task of withstanding Matthew's winds, even if the storm weakens ever so slightly, as anticipated.

Worse, the National Hurricane Center expects 15 to 25 inches of rain, with local amounts to 40 inches in Haiti because of Matthew.

To put those amounts in perspective, it normally takes a year for us New Englanders to accumulate 35 to 40 inches of precipitation. Haiti's going to get that amount in a couple of days.

Worse, Haiti is a hilly nation, and everybody has stripped the hillsides of trees in a desperate bid for firewood. (They can't afford fuel)

The lack of trees means there's nothing to hold the hillsides in place during torrential rains and nothing to absorb water. There is going to be horrible, fatal mudslides and flash floods in Haiti. I'm terribly worried about the people who live there.'

Cuba, too. Eastern Cuba is going to be nailed by Matthew, too.  The weather will deteroriate in these areas during the day today, and these nations should expect the brunt of the hurricane Monday into early Tuesday

Matthew is strong, but has had an odd appearance over the past day or more. It's got its traditional small, calm eye with its intense winds circulating around it. The core of Matthew is not huge in size as hurricanes go, but it is wild.

However, Matthew has also hung on to a huge blob of intense thunderstorms just to its east. If that holds together, it could end up prolonging the agony of Matthew in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic.

It appears this huge blob of storms on the east flank of Matthew is caused by the collision of trade winds blowing from the east as they normally do, colliding with strong west winds on the southern half of Matthew.

When winds collide like this, they have nowhere to go but up. Intense rising air means intense thunderstorms, and that explains Matthew's eastern blob.

The next port of call for Matthew after Haiti and Cuba is the Bahamas, where hurricane watches are already up. Matthew, once again, will probably have weakened a bit more by the time in reaches the Bahamas, but will still pack powerful winds of 110 mph, says the National Hurricane Center.

Plus, you have to remember: Meteorologists are better at forecasting the path of a hurricane than they are the strength. Matthew could regenerate big time amid the warm waters of the Bahamas. Even the best forecasters at the National Hurricane Center know their strength forecast for Matthew over the Bahamas could be a bust.

On top of that, meteorologists still aren't that great at forecasting the path of hurricanes once you get three days or more out. That's not a slam at scientists, it's just that we still have a lot to learn about hurricanes and other tropical systems.

There's still a LOT of questions as to what Matthew will do once it gets to and past the Bahamas. Will it curve harmlessly out to sea? Slam into North Carolina, then spread heavy rains up into the Northeast. Stay off shore until it gets to the Northeast and crash into New England? Or will it do something else?

All this depends on how Matthew interacts with a strong ridge of high pressure over and east of the Canadian Maritimes, a storm system in the Ohio Valley, and a weak tropical system that might form northeast of Matthew.

Subtle changes in the positions, or forecast positions of all these weather systems will greatly influence the path of Matthew.

For us New Englanders, even if Matthew gets this far north, it would happen a week from now. Which means we have plenty of time to monitor forecasts and act accordingly.

Don't panic now if somebody on social media posts a forecast image of Matthew slamming into New England as a very strong hurricane. There are many computer forecasting models that have dozens of scenarios for Matthew, so we shouldn't hang on to one forecast.

Anyone who tells you now on social media that New England is definitely screwed is a hurricane troll. Don't pay attention. Just listen to reliable weather sources. (The National Hurricane Center, the National Weather Service and The Weather Channel are good places to start.)

I'll try my best to relay good information, and I'll try to do it in plain English as we go forward with Matthew.

Incredible Hurricane Matthew Enormous Threat To Jamaica, Cuba; U.S. Uncertain

Intense Hurricane Matthew with a tiny eye common
in super strong tropical systems, is seen her over the
Caribbean Sea Friday.  

As you might have heard on the news, Hurricane Matthew unexpectedly blew up to become a borderline Category 4 or 5 hurricane in the Caribbean on Friday.

It is an enormous,disastrous threat to Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti, as it's still forecast to turn north toward those islands.

Jamaica is so under the gun and I fear for the people who live there. As of this morning, Matthew's sustained winds were 155 mph with higher gusts.

I suppose Matthew might weaken a bit by the time it gets to Jamaica, but its winds are strong enough to trash substantial, well constructed buildings, let alone flimsier structures common in that island nation.

The National Hurricane Center says rainfall on Jamaica will run in the 10 to 15 inch range, with local amounts to 25 mph. This will cause extreme flash flooding and mudslides.

One ray of hope is latest forecast tracks are hinting that Matthew might want to track east of Jamaica rather than over it. Which would slightly lessen the destruction on Jamaica. But unfortunately, this shift could make things worse in eastern Cuba and especially poverty stricken Haiti.

Unfortunately, a Category 4 or 5 storm hitting Haiti might be even worse than such a storm hitting Jamaica in terms of loss of life and destruction.

Matthew is so far ranging that dangerous ocean swells and waves are forecast from Puerto Rico to Venezuela.

So far, forecasters have been able to get Matthew's path through the Caribbean pretty much right, but forecasts for Matthew's incredible wind speeds were way off. Peak winds in Matthew reached 160 mph late Friday, they were at least 60 mph more than forecast.

Matthew intensified at a rate faster that all but two hurricanes recorded in the Atlantic basin. (Wilma in 2005 and Felix in 2007). This despite wind shear, those strong upper level winds that almost always temper a hurricane's strength.

I think record high sea temperatures in Matthew's path fed this beast.  Shear is getting stronger again over Matthew, at least temporarily, so it might weaken a bit today.

In fact, it might already be weakening a little. Matthew looked more ragged in satellite images this morning than it did yesterday.

But those upper level winds might slacken as Matthew approaches Jamaica later Sunday, so it might strengthen again.

After passing over or near Jamaica, Matthew will probably go over eastern Cuba, causing a big mess there. Then it will head into the Bahamas.

Matthew's passage over land in Cuba will have weakened it some, but it will still be a formidable monster.

People along the East Coast of the United States should keep monitoring this thing. A couple computer models yesterday had Matthew slamming into New England, which would potentially represent a rerun of the 1938 hurricane, which was the worst such storm to hit New England on record.

Many other computer models had Matthew reassuringly staying off the coast. This morning, more of the computer forecasting models are trending Matthew further east, which is certainly encouraging for the East Coast.

However, forecasts for hurricanes days in advance are notoriously tricky, so I'd keep an eye on this thing if you live anywhere in the East.  It all depends upon how Matthew interacts with storm systems over the North American continent this week.k

While you're at it, pray for Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba.

Matthew Is Now Most Dangerous Atlantic Hurricane Of 2016

The beast Hurricane Matthew over the Caribbean early Friday

Hurricane Matthew strengthened a lot yesterday and overnight and is now packing 100 mph winds in the Caribbean Sea.

It is also now a big threat to Jamaica and/or Cuba.

Matthew managed to strengthen a lot despite fairly strong upper level winds that usually weaken such storms. It's moving over very warm water,  and the upper level winds are forecast to eventually weaken, so this hurricane might just become a huge powerhouse.

It's stlll heading toward the west, but forecasters are still predicting a sharp northward turn, starting Saturday. That would bring the powerful storm near Jamaica and Cuba, which would be a terrible disaster for them.

There's still some questions as to when exactly Matthew will turn north, and that will determine where in these to countries get the worst hit.

Hurricanes always weaken over land, and Matthew will end up in the Bahamas as a not as strong version of itself early next week.

It could restrengthen over waters east of Florida, though.

Many forecasting computer models take Matthew northeastward, off the East Coast, which would make it not so terrible for the United States.

However, some of the computer models have Matthew hitting the eastern Carolinas or New England, so it's still something to be watched, for sure.