Mathew intensified into a hurricane over the East Caribbean this afternoon – making it the 5th hurricane of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season.
Position and intensity
As of the 11:00PM EDT advisory Mathew was located at 14.1 degrees north and 68.8 degrees west. Maximum sustained winds were 80 miles per-hour, the minimum central pressure was 983 millibars, and movement was to the west at 14 miles per-hour.
Short-term forecast for Mathew
Mathew should continue to intensify over the next several days as it tracks west to west-southwest through the Caribbean.
Short-term forecast track
Mathew is presently being steered west/west-southwest by a strong ridge of high pressure. This ridge will allow Mathew to continue tracking west-southwest until it reaches the Central Caribbean Saturday. Then, sometime late Saturday the ridge should erode, allowing Mathew to slow down significantly and turn to the northwest.
However, beyond this weekend details regarding the track of Mathew remain extremely uncertain.
Short-term intensity forecast
Mathew is currently experiencing 10 – 20kts of wind shear out of the southwest, which will likely continue through tomorrow afternoon. However, other than that Mathew is a generally favorable environment for intensification. Therefore, Mathew should gradually intensify through tomorrow.
Although, by late tomorrow evening wind shear should significantly decrease, allowing Mathew to further intensify – potentially rapidly. The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Mathew to become a category 2 hurricane early Saturday, and a high end category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per-hour by Sunday.
beyond Saturday details regarding Mathew’s intensity remain extremely uncertain as well.
Long-term forecast for Mathew
As stated above, details regarding both Mathew’s track and intensity beyond Saturday remain extremely uncertain. The cause if the uncertainty would be the disagreement on among the two more reliable global models (the GFS and ECMWF) and their ensembles (the GEFS and EPS) on where Mathew will ultimately track and how strong it will be after Saturday.
Long-term forecast track
The GFS, GEFS, ECMWF, and EPS are all in agreement on Mathew tracking north or northwestward into the Bahamas around Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Therefore, the latest forecast track from the National Hurricane Center reflects this.
However, that is pretty much where the agreement ends.
The GFS and GEFS place a trough over the East Gulf of Mexico early next week. In addition, they are forecasting the ridge currently steering Mathew to remain eroded. The result of the two aforementioned factors is Mathew getting pulled to the north east of Florida rather quickly during the first half of next week.
Meanwhile, the ECMWF and EPS place a trough further west, over Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. In addition, they are forecasting the ridge currently steering Mathew to redevelop somewhat. The result of the two aforementioned factors is Mathew meandering rather slowly northwestward just off of the coast of the Southeast United States from Wednesday through next weekend.
Both scenarios are equally possible, and both could cause Mathew to make landfall anywhere from Florida to Maine or track out to sea.
Long-term intensity forecast
The long-term intensity forecast for Mathew appears to be a bit more certain than the long-term track forecast.
The GFS, GEFS, ECMWF, and EPS are all forecasting Mathew to become a major hurricane this weekend or early next week. However, it is extremely hard to forecast the intensity of a tropical cyclone more than a 3 – 5 days in advance; so, how strong Mathew ultimately becomes early next week is still uncertain.
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Mathew to be a high end category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per-hour in the Bahamas Tuesday.
Summary
Details regarding Mathew’s track and intensity beyond Saturday remain highly uncertain, and we don’t yet know if Mathew will impact the United States or not. But, we can say that at this time it does not look like Mathew will impact the Gulf Coast.
However, Mathew could still potentially impact anywhere from Florida to Maine; and since Florida is a Gulf Coast state, we will continue to provide updates on Mathew.
NOTE: The chances of Mathew tracking into the Gulf of Mexico at this time are low, but not completely zero.
We will have another update on Mathew tomorrow night.
