Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Nicole: October 6, Update A

Really quick lunchtime update from this part of the world...

Matthew is still crossing the Bahamas. It looks like he clipped Andros, which put a slight dent in him. Between Andros and Florida are Bimini and the Berry Islands and he is passing directly between them. The wonderful thing about the area between these two little itty-bitty patches of land is that the water between them is super shallow, which means he doesn't have that deep warm water to draw from. So he has definitely weakened:

It looks like once he crosses this shallow area, he may also clip Grand Bahama. All of this is not great news for the Bahamas, alas, but it is veering marginally towards the better end of the spectrum for Florida. He still has to cross the Gulf Stream, so that will add to his intensification, but he will also be interacting with the land mass of Florida by then, which will keep him from intensifying too much. 

His upper tropospheric vorticity (circulation) is also looking weaker (not as red as it was a couple of days ago): 

This indicates a structural level change, not just convection. This is also heading in the right direction and suggests a slightly weaker storm. 

I would conservatively put him as a strong cat 3 at the moment, although the NHC have him conservatively as a mid-level cat 4 with winds of 140mph. Cat 3 range: 111-129mph. Cat 4 range: 130-156mph. Close enough - what's ~10mph difference when we're talking of >100mph?    

In Update B tonight, I'll cover storm surge - where you can find info on that for those who have only just discovered the joys of this blog (where have you been?? ;-)). Also, other sources of data (not models), including SECOORA - the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing System, which has buoys, radars, ok some models, and other goodies in one location: http://secoora.org/hurricane-matthew. 

Oh, and Tropical Storm is now Hurricane Nicole. She doesn't look like it to me (mumble grumble), but I'll save that for later. Gotta do my day job! 

Ciao for now,
J. 

Blogs archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/

Twitter @JyovianStorm

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DISCLAIMER: These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.