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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Wow, that's cool. I love avocados any way I can get 'em. 34chip... I'll be there if it's open! Obviously if there's a tropical storm anywhere nearby, they probably won't let us tourists anywhere near the keys.
I was planning on watching a sunset from Mallory square? (I think that's the name) on Key West Friday night.
Saturday night it's where my wife and I try to remember what it was like to party when we were young in Miami!
CMC is better on long range track, especially this year. The EURO is a solid model, well used by the NHC, not doing as well this year as in years past, still good though. Again, both are global models, there is a curve when using them for intensity.
Thanks xcool :)
lol I will try that one.
Quote LoL Dave... Love your Avatar! You wouldn't be opposed to the spacecane taking Wade Philips with it if our Cowboys lose tomorrow would you?
J/K of course... I don't want him dead, just canned.
Try to do Sunset on The Top of Crowne Plaza Laconcha it 400 Duval St. You can see the whole island from there. I work at the Pier House Resort which is at One Duval.
I am jealous man. We've raised our 3 year old well and are ready to get back out into society now. We're worried that we'll look like the odd couple, where you been the last 10 years, lol. It's going to take some getting used to and NO Sponge Bob is not a topic of conversation, so I hear, lol.
Thanks you. I have one last quetion and I will leave you alone.WTH is the difference between Euro Oper and Euro?
I really find that hard to believe, we'll see on consistency. That's a serious trough for OCT in a strong La Nina to boot.
Day 8...
still, the system has yet to develop so we don't know how accurate they are at the moment..
lmfao, you are funny :)
Only one kid? We're not that smart... Three boys. The oldest is 8 and I'm really dreading him as a teenacher... (That was a typo, but I decided to keep it.) He's already got a 'tude.
The Euro operational is the main run of the model. The Euro (Ensemble Mean) is the mean of different scenarios thrown at the operational model to get different opinions, kind of like a brainstorm.
Thanks for all the info you guys... I'll keep poking my head in to see what Florida has in store for me next week.
Ike, though this looks like a peninsula event, I know you'll keep an eye out for the panhandle and the rest of the northern gulf coast!
Link
ahhh ok so operational better then. I really appreciate your help you have been very kind.
Nothing along the northern GOM the next 10 days...season is winding down here.
Actually...I haven't been impacted by anything all season. Not complaining:)
Well yeah it is the main run. I started looking at the means more last year, sometimes it hints at atmospheric trends that can help in working out these junk models, lol.
yeap
Always welcome different opinions as well, seemed natural.
Makes sense to me.
Have a good night everyone.
You too TWG.
We would normally expect our season to wind down right around this time. :)
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