Hurricane Matthew set to grind up the East Coast?

UPDATE: 3:40 p.m.: The Operational ECMWF model just came out predicting not an East Coast threat, but for the storm to suddenly hook left above Cuba into southeast Florida, then bounce out to sea and do a loop. This was hinted at earlier today in some members of the European Ensembles (and actually last week by the U.S. GFS ensembles), proving once again that we don't know what this storm is doing yet. Remember what Hurricane Joaquin was forecast to do five days out? The average error for the NHC tracks this far out is 330 miles.

ORIGINAL BLOG: In a worst-case scenario, forecast models are now predicting Hurricane Matthew may parallel the East Coast late this week, delivering huge waves, flooding rain and high winds from Florida to New England. Worse, if Matthew joins with a low pressure moving in from the west, the flooding could extend much farther inland than the coast (12Z model tracks shown below). Even if it doesn't, looks like it's time to prepare, if you live on the Southeast coast or the Bahamas.

Throw in a fresh tropical storm and tornadoes in the Midwest, and this is a very active day in weather.

Hurricane Matthew made landfall as a Category 4 storm in Haiti this morning, the first Major (Cat 3-5) Hurricane to hit the country in 50 years (although four tropical systems affected it in 2008, including Gustav, which made landfall as a Cat 1, and Hurricane Tomas, which came very close in 2010, after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake). We don't know much yet, but given the country's infrastructure, it's likely the southwest part of the country was devastated. Fortunately, it's not the highest population area of the country. Although initially it looked like it wouldn't "thread the needle" between Cuba and Haiti like Hurricane Hazel did in 1954, it may miss or only clip southeast Cuba as it moves northward tonight, having lost little steam since moving over the tip of the southwestern "tail" of Haiti:

The storm produced lightning sprites (first time I had heard of those from a hurricane) has had a penchant for keeping a large blob of storms just to its east, which may have caused it to not strengthen past what it did (it was, for a few hours, the first Category 5 storm in the Atlantic since Hurricane Felix in 2007).

Before it hit Haiti, Matthew passed directly over Buoy #42058, measuring pressure of 27.85", winds gusting to 92 MPH either side of the eye, and reporting 35-foot waves!

Matthew was also one of the furthest-south storms since 1950 for the country of Columbia and surrounding area.