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Hurricane Matthew could hit New York City next week

Will Gleason
Written by
Will Gleason
Content Director, The Americas
Photograph: Courtesy CC/Flickr/HLIT
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Surprisingly enough, the weather in New York could become even worse than it is right now.

There’s a possibility that the fifth Atlantic hurricane of the season might be heading towards New York. Hurricane Matthew is currently a category 3 hurricane and is passing through the Caribbean. Current predictions are now saying that the cyclone will most likely keep moving west before then turning north.

The storm is expected to come close to Florida’s coast on Wednesday. After that, forecasts vary but there is a possibility that it could hit NYC depending on its path.

Even if the hurricane veers back out to sea, the city will be in for a lot of rain in the near future with an expected inch and a half of rainfall by Sunday.

Oct 4 Update: After writing this last Friday, I received the following message from Dakota Smith, a graduate student currently studying atmospheric science, who cautioned against jumping to any conclusions about the current path of Hurricane Matthew. 

"Forecasting is tough, particularly 5+ days out. It's hard to say what impacts NYC will see, even now. Last Friday, there wasn't a hurricane "heading towards New York" and we didn't have a good grasp on where it would end up, concerning the US. At the moment, it looks like the US Southeast coast, including Florida, Georgia, & The Carolinas, will see some impacts from Matthew. Whether that's only beach erosion and minor flooding or hurricane force winds and major flooding, is still being closely monitored.

Concerning the Northeast, there's still large uncertainty and claiming "Hurricane Matthew could hit New York City" is (in my opinion) fear mongering. While it's not entirely baseless, the forecast is still too uncertain to put that strong of language out there. Here's the current forecast from the National Hurricane Center."

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