Good morning! Tropical Storm Matthew is chugging along toward the west this morning at 15 mph, headed for an encounter with the Nicaraguan and Honduran coasts later today or first thing tomorrow morning. The ridge of high pressure to the north of Matthew remains very strong at this hour, and this will guide Matthew on a westerly to west-northwesterly course over the next 36-48 hours. Then, things change.
Over the next couple of days, Matthew will scrape along (or move just inland) through Central America on its way to Belize and the Yucatan peninsula. The amount of land interaction will be key in determining how strong Matthew is when it arrives near the Yucatan later this weekend. Remember, some of the warmest water in the entire Atlantic basin is located in the Northwest Caribbean -- ideally, we'll hope that Matthew stays enough over land to avoid some of this very warm water.
As the ridge of high pressure breaks down, the steering currents for Matthew will become very weak this weekend and its likely the storm will drift around the northwest Caribbean/Yucatan through early next week. Then, a developing trough in the eastern United States will have the potential to move Matthew (or possibly a second system that develops/redevelops to the east over the Caribbean) toward the southeastern Gulf of Mexico.
What can we say definitively at this point? Not much; we do know an area of low pressure -- a trough -- will move into the east next week. That's the fairly "certain" part of the forecast. But the status of Matthew (or a second system) as it moves away from the Yucatan is very much up for debate right now and will be the focus of our forecasting over the weekend. At the least, though, with the trough/front coming into the southeastern United States, expect an increase in the chance of rain across SWFL by the middle to end of next week. Ultimately, at this point Matthew is nothing to be worried about -- but you will want to keep tabs on the storm this weekend.
Brian
