Hurricane Warnings for Haiti, Jamaica as Category 4 Matthew Restrengthens

Despite its unorthodox structure, Hurricane Matthew remains a formidable hurricane in the southern Caribbean Sea and an increasing threat to parts of Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba.

Matthew briefly attained Category 5 intensity late Friday, when its top sustained winds hit 160 mph--only 36 hours after Matthew was still a tropical storm. By early Saturday afternoon, Matthew’s peak winds had decreased to 140 mph, but they have since resurged to 150 mph as of the 5 pm EDT advisory from the National Hurricane Center. Matthew is now a high-end Category 4 hurricane.

As noted by Jeff Masters in our morning post, only a few hurricanes in the Atlantic have bolted from tropical storm to Cat 5 intensity in less than two days. Hurricane Wilma of 2005 and Hurricane Patricia of 2015 accomplished the feat in 24 hours; Hurricane Felix of 2007 did it in 30 hours; Hurricane Rita of 2005 and Hurricane Andrew of 1992 did it in 36 hours; and the Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 did so in 42 hours.

Read the Wunderblog story - “Hurricane Warnings for Haiti, Jamaica as Category 4 Matthew Restrengthens.”

NASA bombshell sees February global records tumble

On Saturday, NASA dropped a bombshell of a climate report. February 2016 has soared past all rivals as the warmest seasonally adjusted month in more than a century of global recordkeeping.

NASA’s analysis showed that February ran 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the 1951-1980 global average for the month, as can be seen in the list of monthly anomalies going back to 1880.

The previous record was set just last month, as January 2016 came in 1.14°C above the 1951-1980 average for the month. In other words, February has dispensed with this one-month-old record by a full 0.21°C (0.38°F)--an extraordinary margin to beat a monthly world temperature record by. Perhaps even more remarkable is that February 2015 crushed the previous February record--set in 1998 during the peak atmospheric influence of the 1997-98 “super” El Niño that’s comparable in strength to the current one--by a massive 0.47°C (0.85°F).

Read the WunderBlog story - “February Smashes Earth's All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin.”