Scary Matthew

This infra-red image of Hurricane Matthew is making the rounds on the Internet.  It shows the hurricane, just south of Haiti, with a well-defined eye, the hurricane itself in the shape of a skull - and apparent wind shear producing a demonic smile to boot to produce a perfect "Day of the Dead"-type skull face! :-O

And here's a picture of some of the diabolical destruction Matthew caused in Haiti, without a doubt the most cursed nation on earth: 

It's not better in the Bahamas, I'm sure.  That country is feeling the force of Matthew, and it will soon wreak havoc on the entire Florida Atlantic coast as a major hurricane (possibly Category 4 status again!) before going on to ravage Georgia and South Carolina.  

The Global Forecast System (GFS) and Euro models haven't changed in the most recent runs.  Both show the storm moving away from the East Coast this weekend before going in a clockwise loop.  The GFS shows it passing through the Bahamas and Florida again as a lesser storm weakened by wind shear and then heading toward the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico; the Euro backs it up before it makes a full circle and sends it out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Whatever happens, it will not affect the Northeast, and Tropical Storm Nicole isn't going to have an impact on anything except Matthew itself.  Northeasterners shouldn't get too complacent, though.  The experts are calling for nineteen named storms overall in this 2016 season, with six hurricanes and four major ones - and there have been fourteen named storms so far, with five hurricanes, two of them major.   It's not over yet.  After all, Hurricane Sandy was the eighteenth storm of the 2012 season, and that storm hit the Northeast toward the end of October. :-O