Matthew Throwing A Curve?

The tropical models have come around to the thinking of yesterday's ECMWF (European Model) & GFS (American Model), now taking Matthew out to sea to the east, after paralleling the North Carolina coast. However both the ECMWF and the GFS are now forecasting Matthew to do a loop-the-loop after raking the U.S. southeastern coast! After performing this maneuver, the GFS has the gall to take the center of Matthew back into the east coast of Florida and all the way across southern Florida, into the Gulf of Mexico! The ECMWF takes Matthew north, off the east coast after departing the roller coaster.

The biggest concern right now is the eastern Florida coast. It looks like they will feel a significant impact from this storm Thursday night & Friday, and a Hurricane Warning is up for much of that area. The Hurricane Center is forecast Matthew to still be a category 3 hurricane (111 mph-129 mph) when it first approaches the Florida coast. I think there will also be significant impacts felt along the Georgia and South Carolina coasts. As I mentioned yesterday, all of these areas should be on the western, weaker side of the storm, but that may be a small consolation considering the strength of the storm. It is still likely to wreak a lot of havoc in those coastal areas of the southeast.

Whether the storm actually performs a loop-the-loop (I'm expecting that it will) or not, it will likely weaken during its rendezvous with the southeastern coastlines. In our region, there is still the chance for some showers or rain by Saturday night, as the mid-level trough we talked about yesterday passes through, however the chance for this appears to be a little lower than it was yesterday. Otherwise, it looks like more dry & pleasant fall weather for the next week with daytime highs increasing through Friday (getting well into the 70's in many places by then), then cooling a bit over the weekend into early next week. Late nights/early mornings will be chilly.