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Forecast for Post-Tropical Cyclone Matthew

Jackson Dill
Oct 7, 2016
2 min read

Here's the latest on what we know regarding Post-Tropical Cyclone Matthew:

Hurricane Matthew made landfall on the western tip of Haiti at 7AM ET Tuesday morning, then made a second landfall on the eastern tip of Cuba just after 8PM ET Thursday evening, both as a category 4 hurricane. During the day Wednesday and Wednesday night, it probably made landfall on a few of the smaller islands of The Bahamas. So far for the United States, Matthew did not make landfall on Florida, so the 11 year major hurricane drought for the US will continue. At 11AM Saturday, however, Matthew made landfall on McClellanville, South Carolina as a 75 mph Category 1 hurricane.

Check out some of the videos taken from Haiti and Cuba below of all the damage, which led to hundreds of deaths. Also for a look at a lot of the damage in the Southeast, check out our Twitter feed (you do not need an account) here.

North Carolina and parts of the Mid-Atlantic will be impacted by Matthew on Sunday likely as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane force winds just south and east of the coast. Because all of the moisture and rain is to the north, the eastern half of the state will deal with some heavy rain and flooding in some locations with still a few inches of rainfall forecast. Along the coast, there is still the potential for life-threatening storm surge, but it won't be as bad as the surge that affected South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Nonetheless, Matthew will still be a dangerous storm for North Carolina where hopefully no more people die. Already four people are confirmed dead in this state.

Then looking ahead to next week, the loop that we've been talking about the past few days now appear to be unlikely. Most of the models have Matthew moving out to sea, so we can finally say goodbye to this catastrophic storm. Also, we will likely not hear this storm name again as I expect it to be retired because of all the fatalities and damage Matthew left.

Tropical storm conditions are still possible along coastal portions of North Carolina, so Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect:

There is also the threat for life-threatening storm surge along parts of the North Carolina coast, so an experimental Storm Surge Warning from the National Hurricane Center is in effect: