UPDATE: Dropsonde observations from the recon flight suggests Matthew is intensifying tonight. Heading for Cat 5 again?
Latest microwave imagery showing a secondary eyewall forming, suggesting eyewall replacement cycle is imminent?
ORIGINAL POST
As you awake this morning, Matthew was and remains a powerful Category 4 hurricane but for a time overnight he revved up to rare Cat 5 intensity setting a new Atlantic record for most southerly Cat 5 storm on record packing winds of 160 mph. When this peaking of a ’36-hour rapid intensification process’ from tropical storm to Cat 5, the core was barely 80 miles off the Colombia coast.
This is also the first and strongest Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane since Felix of 2007, the second of two Cat 5’s to hammer Mexico that year.
What makes Matthew all the more rare is that it’s strengthened by 70kts within 24 hours in a typically unfavourable, sheared atmospheric environment…
Here’s the very latest visible satellite loop of Cat 4, 145 mph Matthew.
This was the eye of Cat 5 Matthew seen on the Hurricane Hunter aircraft radar screen overnight.
What’s striking and head scratching about Matthew, is it strengthened into a Cat 5 monster within a technically unfavourable atmospheric environment.
According to Sam Lillo, at 941mb, it’s the 3rd HIGHEST yes highest pressure for a Category 5 storm.
Notice in the below close-up NHC takes Matthew back to MAJOR over the Bahamas.
Track and intensity projected by the ECMWF through 216 hours.
As well as destructive wind, rainfall is a huge concern with 1-2ft expected over Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba. High topography will lead to flash flooding and mudslides.
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