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
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Matthew is continuing off to the NW @ 12. The seed sitting in the GOH will be named Nicole, if it develops.
Shear changes so much I don't look at it until there is a storm to track, can't help ya with the shear forecast.
So Has Lisa ...
NHC tracks 2d rank helper vortex through two forecasts
and CIMSS regular MIMIC fooled too.
Look at CIMSS-IR animated Gif for Lisa ... CIMSS MIMIC-IR tool at Univ. of Wisc
Look at the animated gif for today 0926
Can see an E to W bypass in the feed network pulse on the lower right just at start
Lisa core is dark circle on the right
Everyone is tracking helper vortex way off in upper left because its close to original trak
Just have to say it - roflmao
DOes it bring it west og Key West or over or near Key West? Thanks!!
96 hours :o !
Some of Matt's convection looks to be headed into Epac side of The Flow. Wonder if it has any spin left.
Hi all. 'Nite all.
This is a rare weather situation in the Atlantic to be witness to, should it go down as modeled. Things will become much more clear by tomorrow night :-)
I've done that at least 10 times, maybe more :-b
But I don't want to wait until tomorrow I want to know NOW lol. Yes and if it does verify I will have a new prospective of the models.
Reading the global's takes some skill, they have been pretty consistent with the end result and the near term. The mid-term leaves little to be desired, this is where you need to weed through the junk.
there might be a weak mid level low forming there
heavy convection also moving towards that area
Agreed.
Storm shreds aging tents in Haiti earthquake camps
By JONATHAN M. KATZ (AP) – 2 hours ago
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The sudden, powerful storm that ripped through Haiti's battered capital destroyed thousands of tents in the homeless camps where more than 1.3 million people live eight months after the earthquake destroyed their homes, shelter officials said Saturday.
The death toll from Friday afternoon's storm stood at six people, with nearly 8,000 tents damaged or destroyed, according to a statement from the United Nation's International Organization for Migration. The organization said it had distributed 5,000 tarps.
Earlier, Civil Protection chief Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste told The Associated Press that the dead included two children and hundreds of people were reported with varying degrees of injury.
The storm's effect was exacerbated by the flimsiness of tarps and tents that have been baking, soaking and flapping in the Caribbean elements since the Jan. 12 earthquake killed at least 230,000 people and left millions homeless. Hundreds of thousands of families continue living on the streets of the capital waiting for temporary housing or money to find new apartments.
"Many of the tents that were destroyed had reached their end of lifespan," said Gerhard Tauscher, shelter cluster coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross.
Reconstruction has barely begun despite billions of dollars pledged for Haiti in the wake of the disaster. Less than 15 percent of money promised at the U.N. donor's conference in March 2has been delivered. The United States, which spent more than $1.1 billion in humanitarian aid after the quake, has not delivered any of its promised long-term funds.
Wood and metal temporary shelters fared much better in the storm, suffering minimal damage. But few of the earthquake homeless have those.
Instead they continue living in tarps and tents, sometimes reinforced with metal or wood. As many as 10 percent of such shelters were destroyed in some areas of the capital by the sudden squall, with damage concentrated in central urban areas, Tauscher said.
Camp-management facilities including office tents, clinics and childcare spaces were shredded, especially in camps perched on the steep hillsides between downtown Port-au-Prince and the suburb of Petionville.
"(Our) infrastructure has been ripped up: the house, the office, child-friendly spaces. The clinic held up pretty well and there wasn't any one person hurt. But trees fell and the place looks an absolute mess," said Emmett Fitzgerald of the American Refugee Council, who manages the 26,000-person camp at Terrain Acra.
Sean Penn's J/P Haiti Relief Organization also suffered damage to its administrative and clinic tents at the Petionville country club golf-course camp home to tens of thousands of quake homeless.
There was less damage to the north of the city at the Corail-Cesselesse camp, where residents used tools to drain water away from tents and shore up sagging homes with help from international aid and security teams, manager Bryant Castro said.
The storm was not part of any tropical system but rather a standard early-fall Caribbean storm caused by cold and dry conditions in the upper atmosphere, U.S. National Hurricane Center senior specialist Stacy Stewart told AP.
Windspeed and rainfall data were not immediately available. Based on the reports of uprooted trees and damaged tents, Stewart estimated winds might have reached 60 mph (100 kph) — a violent storm, but far below hurricane strength.
Haiti has not suffered a direct hit from a hurricane or tropical storm this year, but months of hurricane season remain. Forecasters are watching the remnants of Tropical Storm Matthew off the coast of Central America, which could transform into a "monsoon low" and threaten the Western Caribbean next week.
The impoverished nation was extremely vulnerable to damage from passing storms even before the quake. Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil slum was flooded by rains in 2007. In 2008, four named storms struck in the space of a month, killing nearly 800 people and plunging the coastal city of Gonaives under water for weeks.
The models seem to be having a hard time dealing with the amount of heat expected to come out of the Caribbean and could be creating several lows to do the same job as one that eventually ends up at the latter part of the run, and most likely is there the whole way, just skewed in the mid-term.
just hopped on nhc website and zoomed in on the shortwave and found this same circulation you are seeing, its at 15n 82.5w heading N. convection is building to the west and wrapping into the circulation.
Interesting, thank you
check this outtt
Latest ECMWF
Like a Fujiwhara effect. An outer band that was in the Caribbean went across the Yucatan into the Bay of Campeche and now is entering the Pacific and is pulling what is left of the center of Matthew along now.
Wow looking very familiar so far...
Carribean looks hellish
Almost looks like new center east of Nicaragua...
That's so nice of you!
I am still so amazed at the difference in weather between Florida and California, yet we both grow Oranges.
Here in California, there'll be Live StormWatch coverage from the Storm Center with Live Doppler 9000 with reporters all over Southern California to bring you the rain live, as it happens! Maybe even up to 1/4 inch in places!
LoL
So same location different intensity?
If your coming to Key West come on down. We will just have a hurricane party.
News is that Florida Avocado's are better for you than Calicados.
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