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
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 — Blog Index
none taken :o)
Took you long enough to realize that.
I was actually waiting for you to realize, I guess I'm bored and lazy today. XD
I'm sorry - what does "gernally" mean??
Re: The Main Blog
The Humor Forecast Center is currently monitoring a large area of no spin accompanied by a dissipating cyclone to it's west. While models continue to indicate some future CONUS landfalling catastrophe, current conditions are actually quite nice and benign.
.
.
The HFC feels that current conditions are ripe for the blog to go into a total funk. There is a 90% chance of a tropical depression forming and advisories may begin shortly.
Humor Forecast Center
Forecaster Kukla
I must be getting rusty. lol
go up to the top of the page and click on mail, right next to "my quick menu".
enter the person's name you want to send mail to, compose, and send. voila :)
me too, I would not have replied had I known..
thanks for the heads up..
Just getting on today. Was out at the beach for Natinal Coastal Clean-up day Is the "center" of Matthew's circulation at just north of 17 and just west of 90? It looked like the upper level decoupled this morning from the lower level circulation?
Rainbow
Thank you, kind person.
TFP's are available.
based on what?
We are? when might this be? thx
J F V?
I would bet on it! And I'm not a gambler! lol
Thats a great image.
These images are primarily for use in tropical storm monitoring. There are several areas to choose from providing a large-scale view of the Atlantic, down to the Gulf of Mexico. During hurricane season, the hurricanes page provides a variety of GOES atmospheric products to help monitor the active storms.
AL 14L 2010092500 03 GFSO 000 202N 279W 25
AL 14L 2010092500 03 GFSO 006 217N 280W 32
AL 14L 2010092500 03 GFSO 012 229N 282W 28
AL 14L 2010092500 03 GFSO 018 239N 289W 29
AL 14L 2010092500 03 GFSO 024 249N 285W 32
interesting. they hook him east??
NHC disagrees, also you must be following the convection and not what the circulation is supposed to do
last I checked we track systems based on circulation
I think your right,nrt! We may be developing all week.
ADDED: GFS appears to be modeling the monsoon. Normal process of cyclogenesis may not apply.
Is it M or N?
Could be a raging controversy just over the horizon.
:0
NHC gonna go "N" based on repetition of certain phraseology in the M discussions.
FOR THE PAST FEW DAYS GLOBAL MODELS HAVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY DEPICTING
A TROPICAL CYCLONE IN THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA TOWARD THE
MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK. THE MOST RECENT RUNS INDICATE THAT ANY
DEVELOPMENT THERE WOULD LIKELY NOT HAVE CONTINUITY WITH MATTHEW...
BUT RATHER REPRESENT THE FORMATION OF A NEW TROPICAL CYCLONE.
yup, which would potentially mean that the first system is stronger than what the GFS shows
you are quite welcome.
Yet another example of a large monsoonal low developing.
I don't see any sign's of cyclogenesis yet, what are you seeing?
Viewing: 651 - 701
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 — Blog Index