Hurricane Matthew East Coast Threat

Larry Cosgrove has been saying for awhile that we would have a big storm in early October that would shake up the weather pattern, it does look like this may verify with 97L. Here are his thoughts from Saturday when he sent out his newsletter.

"The set-up in play here is vaguely reminiscent of three systems of the past: Hurricanes Hazel (1954), Agnes (1972), and Opal (1995). Those were all high-impact storms, of course, but I cannot say that the apparent weather produced in those events would be replicated in the long range period. I can surmise that a Gulf of Mexico approach seems the more likely case. And with a borderline (as in very weak) La Nina episode underway, then the Opal scenario is the most probable. The very warm waters may support a major hurricane, and many highly populated areas are along the prospective route of this feature."

Keep in mind though the Euro has been awful in the tropics this year. The GFS and CMC have both done a better job with track and the GFS has done the best with intensity. This one is a long ways out and the pattern is quite complex so it'll change a good deal the next few days. I'm thinking a hurricane charley type of track is a possibility.

I'm becoming VERY concerned about 97L. For one this looks like it'll become a cat 5 in the Caribbean and could do major damage wherever it ends up. Second my big concern is the wind field as this moves N to NW into the Bahamas and off our coast.

Right now models keep it just far enough offshore for minimal rain and gusty winds only. However shift the track 200-300 miles west and it's a different story. Also notice the strong 1035mb high to the north. As it strengthens while moving north and transitions to Extratropical the wind field will expand as pictured here. The cmc and GFS both show an area about the size of VA, NC and SC combined with TS force winds out of water. That's a HUGE amount of area and if it comes west much more then it will cause big problems. A hazel type of track would be catastrophic.

GFS and CMC continue east trend, gonna be a fish storm....the first high moves out in time to allow the storm to pull north and then the big 1035 high moves SE and shoves this thing NE.....need stronger ridging over NE and the NE ATL and its not there....might get close enough that the very LP in the cane and the strong for this time of year HP could setup some serious NE fetch though....

Euro could be very ominous and many models other than GFS are shifting west.

Fish storm it will not be. This will impact the islands and potentially make landfall in the DR/Haiti as a major hurricane. It also may track west more into the GOM as the Euro ensembles indicate. Still a lot up in the air and I wouldn't take model output seriously past 72 hours for track as this is a very complex pattern. For now follow climo which indicates either a Hazel type track or a track into the GOM. That's the most likely two scenarios and for it to go due north over Haiti then out to Bermuda has never happened in recorded history, that I could find.