Matthew Still a Powerful Category 4 Hurricane; Long-term Forecast RemainsUncertain

As of the 11:00PM EDT advisory hurricane Matthew was located at 13.8 degrees north and 73.6 degrees west. Maximum sustained winds were 150 miles per-hour, the minimum central pressure was 940 millibars, and movement was north-northwest at 7 miles per-hour.

Mathew’s 150 mile per-hour winds make it a high end category 4 hurricane.

Short-term forecast track for Mathew

Matthew finally started to feel the influence of the trough over the East Gulf of Mexico this evening. In addition, the ridge that has been steering Matthew to the west/west-southwest over the past 4 – 5 days has started to weaken. The aforementioned events have caused Matthew to turn towards the north-northwest as forecast.


Matthew will continue to move towards the north-northwest through tomorrow evening, but will turn to the north overnight tomorrow.

Matthew is then expected to make landfall in West Haiti late Monday, and in East Cuba early Tuesday.

By Tuesday afternoon Mathew should be located in the Bahamas.

Short-term intensity forecast for Matthew

Matthew will gradually weaken tomorrow, and will likely continue to do so until landfall in Haiti and Cuba Monday into Tuesday. However, at this time it appears likely that Matthew will remain a powerful low end category 4 or high end category 3 hurricane until landfall Monday in Haiti, and early Tuesday in Cuba.

Matthew will likely re-intensify over the Bahamas on Tuesday after exiting Haiti and Cuba.

Long-term forecast

Nothing has really changed since our previous update.

Details regarding both Matthew’s track and intensity beyond Tuesday remain highly uncertain as the GFS, ECMWF, GEFS, and EPS are still in disagreement beyond Tuesday.

Since details regarding Matthew’s track and intensity remain highly uncertain in the long-term, and nothing has really changed sine our previous update, we won’t discuss them tonight.

We will have another update out on Matthew tomorrow. 

Caleb Carmichael
Caleb Carmichael

Caleb is the owner of Gulf Coast Storm Center. He is currently an undergraduate student at Mississippi State University majoring in geoscience with a concentration in broadcast and operational meteorology. While not yet a meteorologist, Caleb has been providing weather updates, news, and analysis for the Gulf Coast since 2014.

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