![]() The storm tracked directly along the eastern Florida coastline, never officially making landfall, as the eye stayed over water, but buffeting the coastline with heavy rain, strong winds, and a large storm surge.Īt some points, the eye of Matthew was less than 10 miles offshore. Matthew stayed a major hurricane for just over seven days, the fifth-longest streak on record. ![]() Matthew’s United States storm surge impactsĪfter tearing through the Caribbean, Matthew maintained its strength by taking advantage of some of the warmest waters on record in the Caribbean and along the Gulf Stream. Matthew brought heavy rain, strong winds and a large storm surge to many southern states. NASA/NOAA image from the Suomi-NPP Satellite taken from NOAA's Global Data Explorer. Hurricane Matthew following the coastline of the southeastern United States on October 7, 2016. Next on Matthew’s target list: the United States. Matthew was the first major hurricane on record to make landfall in Haiti, Cuba, and the Bahamas. After striking Haiti, Matthew, still a major hurricane, barreled through Cuba and the Bahamas, leading to additional-though fewer-fatalities. As of mid-October, more than 1,000 people were listed as killed by the storm in Haiti alone. It was the first time a Category 4 storm made landfall in Haiti since 1964.Įntire towns were destroyed, bridges washed away, and communities left stranded. Matthew made landfall over the southern peninsula of Haiti on October 4 as a Category 4 storm, delivering 20 to 40 inches of rain in southern Haiti. Devastation in the CaribbeanĪfter reaching Category 5 strength, Matthew abruptly changed course, heading north with Haiti and Cuba in its direct path. All of which was even more unusual as it took place in the eastern Caribbean Ocean, a location which has been dubbed a “hurricane graveyard”-a place where low-pressure systems have routinely failed to develop into hurricanes. Matthew was the first Category 5 storm in the Atlantic since 2007, and it was the lowest latitude Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic on record. In the 24 hours after September 30, Matthew intensified from a storm with 80mph winds to a Category 5 behemoth with 160mph winds. After this relatively slow start, Matthew grew extremely strong, extremely quickly. The storm became named a Category 1 hurricane on September 29. Matthew became a tropical storm close to the Lesser Antilles on September 28, and for several days tracked west as a tropical storm. Matthew’s origin from normal storm to Category 5 monster NASA/NOAA image from the Suomi-NPP Satellite taken from NOAA's Global Data Explorer. To the northeast, over the Atlantic Ocean, spins, at the time, tropical storm Nicole. "In some cases, the extreme events are why we have long term erosion," says Spencer Rogers, coastal construction and erosion expert with Sea Grant North Carolina.Hurricane Matthew making landfall across the southern peninsula of Haiti on October 4, 2016. ![]() And yet, nearly half of Florida's 825 miles of sandy shoreline are state-designated critical erosion areas. Besides bronzin' and beach volleyball, sandy shorelines also support ecosystems. Tourism contributes $67 billion to the Florida's economy, and not all those people are headed to Disney World. Big storms, like Hurricane Matthew, have the potential to alter, or hasten those other erosional patterns, by reshaping the shoreline, devouring dunes, or demolishing human-made fortifications.īeaches are money. Longer term, things like development-and way longer term, sea level rise-cause a more gradual coastal deterioration. Shorelines experience seasonal ebbing from winter, and typically regrow in the summer. But thinking long-term, the storm is a punctuation mark in the creeping erosion narrative playing out on many southeastern shorelines.Įrosion is nothing new. It killed hundreds battering through the Caribbean, and knocked out power, forced evacuations, and flooded beaches as it scoured the Florida coastline.
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