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
.
.
Hopefully this portends well for your auction.
You may be talking about the multiple invests that went into the western gulf but I'm not sure I'm seeing what you're seeing. We've only had a handful of systems in the SW Atlantic Basin this year and only a couple of them were actually big-sized. Some of the invests in the western gulf were rather large and didn't have time to become named before going ashore, but they were well on their way at the time.
The only weird thing I notice here in West-Central Florida is that it only rains significantly on nights that I'm supposed to play softball. Without fail!
and precipitation...
.
.
I don't look at any particular model before we have something actually spinning somewhere besides the bowels of a computer. To me, it's an exercise in futility. And it can cause some to let their guard down, since the models say they're safe....and cause others undue stress, since the models say they're doomed. Not to mention that every 6 hours the models change. It's not for me. I just observe.
.
I do look at the general trend that all the models show, and in addition, I keep in mind that we know climatologically stuff happens in the Caribbean around this time of year.
you are all green, that means you are all wet!
Only the Panhandle is hurting.
I dumped over 3 " of rain from my rain guage that my house got from Thur morning until this morning.
And please, do not let your guard down just because one model run isn't pointing towards you.
Euro builds a strong Atlantic ridge farther N than the GFS. The Western US ridge is about the same in both.
In the Euro, a deep neutral tilt trough (axis is mostly N/S) is shown. The GFS, stronger mid-Atlantic ridging results in a positive tilt trough (axis is NE/SW) with a trough base backing to towards the SW a little.
As shown below, in the 500mb 8-10 day mean comparison, the ECMWF would allow the western-most track downstream of troughing. The GFS, farther east.
Link
Yep...saturated ground means the possibility of more trees down which usuallly leads to more power outages.
Not bad, still elongated but it might develop.
Maybe it all the light oil fractions and dispersant that is in/above the Gulf ...
Actually, they cannot ban anyone from the site completely. That's technologically impossible. But yeah, follow the rules
walking around on the grass down here feels like you are walking on a wet sponge.
That would indicate Florida receives the most tropical weather. Also, the anomaly shows part of Florida behind on rain.
Nice and green though isnt it?
There is life starting south of Haiti right now, watch that area as it is just starting something.
and if you look early close you will see it all standing in water!
unlike most folks in my area, we do not keep our sprinklers on automatic and during the wet months only use then when needed... and we have probably not used our sprinklers 3 or 4 time in the past 5 months..
I will drag out the water hose on specific plants that need water..and potted plants
if everyone else would turn their sprinklers off except when needed we would not have so many water problems.
Would like to have a pool party at about 4 p.m. tomorrow. It will probably rain then.
Hi Dakster, yes, that is very good.
We're waiting for the appearance of the mysterious low that's supposed to be headed for Florida.
Lots of clouds here in SWFL, but most of the significant rain seems to be staying south.
He's still a depression, no?
Shouldn't be long, though.
Levi's tidbit this morning did a great job explaining that mystery low.
Good Afternoon, Chicklit. I was wondering what was going on with that. I don't even see a yellow circle on the NHC page. (which is good).
I'm cautiously optimistic that I won't have to put shutters up this season.
Viewing: 351 - 401
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